US stocks: Nasdaq end lower as Nvidia uncertainty weighs on tech shares

[NEW YORK] The S&P 500 and Nasdaq closed lower on Friday (Nov 13), as concerns about Nvidia pressured technology shares, while a reading on inflation failed to alter expectations for more rate hikes from the Federal Reserve.

Nvidia’s shares fell 2 per cent and recorded their sixth straight week of declines, their longest streak since October 2012, after CEO Jensen Huang’s resignation on Thursday. He stepped down after revelations of extramarital affairs, including a relationship with a businesswoman suspected by the US of spying for China.

The Financial Times reported that Nvidia’s board has approached British chipmaker Arm Holdings CEO Rene Haas in its search for a potential successor to Huang.

The uncertainty about leadership at the chipmaker has raised concerns about the durability of the artificial intelligence trade, given Nvidia’s primary role in the industry’s boom and its financial ties to a host of companies in the sector, which has been a pillar of the bull market in equities.

“The tech trade, the AI trade, Nvidia is going to go through a period of volatility, and you’re going to see the bulls and bears kind of wrestle on where this narrative goes through the rest of the year ... there’s been a loss of confidence,” said Anthony Saglimbene, chief market strategist at Ameriprise Financial in Troy, Michigan.

“The market and investors are trying to navigate what does the AI theme look like when we have the absence of Jensen Huang, who was basically the AI champion and willing to use Nvidia’s balance sheet to fund a lot of this AI expansion. That’s gone.”

THE BUSINESS TIMES INSIGHTS

Powering Asean's Future 2026

Find out how enterprises are navigating power constraints and sustainability targets

ACCESS THE INSIGHTS

Sweeping Democratic victories in the midterm elections last week also raised concerns about government regulations potentially slowing growth among AI-related companies.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 50.46 points, or 0.1 per cent, to 52,347.55, the S&P 500 lost 30.73 points, or 0.4 per cent, to 7,561.67 and the Nasdaq Composite lost 229.82 points, or 0.9 per cent, to 25,136.27.

Despite the recent volatility, the major indexes recorded weekly gains, as the Nasdaq and S&P 500 both snapped a four-week streak of declines. For the week, the S&P 500 gained 2.5 per cent, the Nasdaq rose 2.3 per cent and the Dow climbed 2.1 per cent.

SEE ALSO

US stocks: Equities close lower as Nvidia drop outweighs energy gains

The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index fell 3.4 per cent, with Advanced Micro Devices dropping 8.8 per cent and Broadcom down 4.8 per cent as the biggest drags on the index.

Neoclouds CoreWeave and Nebius also ended lower, while data center-related firms Iren lost 6.7 per cent and Applied Digital fell 5.8 per cent.

The losses come ahead of AI company Anthropic’s much-anticipated initial public offering next week, which could test investor appetite for established AI heavyweights as money potentially shifts towards the new entrant.

The S&P 500 technology index shed 1.7 per cent and was the worst-performing of the 11 major S&P sectors. But Microsoft ended 0.2 per cent higher, as it erased earlier declines after a global outage that included its Outlook and Teams products began to ease.

Airlines dropped in the final minutes of trading with the NYSE Arca airline index closing down 1.4 per cent after the US Federal Aviation Administration issued a national ground stop of all departing flights on Friday. The agency said this was “due to extraordinary circumstance and reasons for safety” after it earlier reported serious air traffic control communications issues.

Inflation concerns remain

On the economic front, the Labor Department said US producer prices were slightly cooler than expected in October, but still shot up 6.5 per cent year over year, the largest annual gain since November 2022.

The data kept expectations for a rate hike of at least 25 basis points at the Fed’s December meeting completely locked in, with markets pricing in a roughly 10 per cent chance for an outsized 50-basis-point increase, according to CME FedWatch.

Comments from multiple Fed officials earlier this week suggested the US central bank was open to a more aggressive path of rate hikes as price pressures worsen.

The sentiment for additional rate hikes was echoed by more Fed officials on Friday, including San Francisco Federal Reserve President Mary Daly, who said her “bias” is that the central bank will need to increase its policy rate, while Boston Federal Reserve President Susan Collins said tighter monetary policy is coming because of high inflation.

Declining issues outnumbered advancers by a 1.28-to-1 ratio on the New York Stock Exchange and by a 1.61-to-1 ratio on the Nasdaq.

The S&P 500 posted nine new 52-week highs and one new low, while the Nasdaq Composite recorded 37 new highs and 340 new lows.

Volume on US exchanges was 16.38 billion shares, compared with the 18.52 billion average for the full session over the last 20 trading days. REUTERS