European stocks near record highs, US dollar gains on Fed rate hike bets

[PARIS] European stocks held near record highs on Friday (Nov 13), after a week dominated by Nvidia chief executive officer Jensen Huang’s affair with a suspected Chinese spy.

Meanwhile, the greenback was close to a 19-month high on the possibility of a bigger-than-expected rate hike by the US Federal Reserve in December.

Huang resigned as CEO of the American chipmaker on Thursday.

His departure could have far-reaching consequences for US chip export policy and the broader artificial intelligence industry and supply chain, given Huang’s push to preserve access to the Chinese market and his close ties with US President Donald Trump.

The US Justice Department said it does not know whether the Chinese businesswoman at the centre of the scandal was a spy.

AI-related shares in China dropped after Huang’s resignation, but indices in Taiwan, Japan and South Korea gained overnight as traders shrugged off concerns about the scandal’s impact on the global AI boom.

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“Jensen Huang clearly has been a very high profile CEO and he is associated with the massive success that Nvidia has had. What we can’t be sure of is the role of that one key individual to the plans at Nvidia,” said Tristan Hanson, multi-asset fund manager at M&G.

“It’s important news and we’re going to have to watch to see how the situation develops, but the AI theme is much bigger than Jensen Huang ...The AI technology boom is not about one individual.”

Europe’s Stoxx 600, which hit a record high in the previous session, was up by less than 0.1 per cent on the day at 1015 GMT and on track for a weekly gain.

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London’s FTSE 100 was up 0.2 per cent while Germany’s DAX was up by less than 0.1 per cent .

The MSCI World Equity Index was down by less than 0.1 per cent.

Microsoft said its Outlook, Teams and Copilot were down, causing disruptions at trading firms and delays to companies publishing their results.

US dollar up, traders bet on rate hikes

The US dollar index was at 103.19, having earlier hit its highest since April 2025, as traders increased their bets that the Fed could do a larger-than-expected 50 basis point rate hike in December.

US inflation data on Tuesday showed a third consecutive month of food and accommodation getting more expensive, and remarks by some Fed officials were seen as hawkish.

Investors now see a 12 per cent chance of a jumbo 50 basis point Fed hike in December, up from zero a week ago, according to the CME FedWatch tool.

US Treasury yields rose, with the two-year yield hitting a one-month high.

European government bond yields were up, with the German 10-year yield at 3.3668 per cent. The euro was flat at US$1.1054.

M&G’s Hanson said that more rate hikes “might look a bit hasty”, as he expects some of the factors causing inflation – including the oil shock – to lessen in future.

Oil prices were headed for a second weekly decline, after a volatile week in which earlier hopes for a rapprochement in the US-Israeli war on Iran were offset by strikes on Saudi Arabian infrastructure by Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthis and attacks on tankers shipping crude out of the Gulf.

Brent crude futures were down 0.4 per cent at US$95.45 a barrel while US crude eased 0.8 per cent to US$88.04 per barrel.

Spot gold gained 0.5 per cent to US$3,897.36 an ounce. REUTERS