Asian stocks mixed as Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang's resignation weighs on AI shares

Huang's exit and the Nvidia sell-off

Jensen Huang, who co-founded Nvidia and was a key architect of its AI strategy, has resigned as chief executive. The announcement came on Thursday, 12 November, after an affair raised U.S. national security concerns. Colette Kress, the company's longtime chief financial officer, has taken over as interim CEO. Nvidia shares fell more than 4% on Wall Street, and in intraday trading the decline reached as much as 14% before bargain buyers cut the close to 4.3%. Some in the industry deemed Huang bigger than Nvidia itself, which raises questions about how his exit could shape the development of AI technology.

Mixed trading across Asia

Wall Street's S&P 500 slipped 0.4% on Thursday, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the Nasdaq Composite each dropped 0.4%. U.S. futures edged higher on Friday despite those losses. Japan's Nikkei 225 initially rose 0.8% to 61,283.16 points, with Tokyo Electron up 1.5% while SoftBank Group, an OpenAI investor, lost 5.2%. By the close in Tokyo the Nikkei had finished 0.53% higher at 61,142.35 points. In South Korea the Kospi eased 0.5% to 5,317.05 points, as Samsung Electronics dropped 0.7% and SK Hynix fell 2%. Taiwan's Taiex climbed 1.7%, helped by a 0.9% gain at TSMC, while Hong Kong's Hang Seng slipped 0.9% to 23,786.48 points, Shanghai's Composite edged up 0.2% to 3,663.71 points, and Australia's S&P/ASX 200 declined 0.7%.

Nikkei 2250.8%

Taiex1.7%

Shanghai Composite0.2%

Hang Seng-0.9%

Kospi-0.5%

S&P/ASX 200-0.7%

Nikkei 225

0.8 %

Taiex

1.7 %

Shanghai Composite

0.2 %

Hang Seng

-0.9 %

Kospi

-0.5 %

S&P/ASX 200

-0.7 %

Data from the article text

Yen, rates and Japan's defense budget

The yen weakened to 159.86 per dollar on expectations of further Fed rate increases. The two-year US Treasury yield had earlier reached 4.8920%, as investors no longer ruled out a 50-basis-point Fed hike in December. In Japan, Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi's government reportedly plans deep cuts to defense orders, citing insiders. The finance ministry has proposed capping defense spending at 50 to 60 trillion yen over the next five years, well below the 80 trillion yen that security policymakers have called for. The reported squeeze follows tax cuts Takaichi promised to boost growth, and it complicates Japan's goal of raising military spending to 2% of gross domestic product.

Deals, trade curbs and oil

Samsung Electronics is reportedly negotiating to buy US cooling system maker Modine Manufacturing, according to a media report. Washington is also considering a ban on imports of new Chinese optical transceivers used to connect equipment in AI data centers, adding to doubts among Chinese technology firms that rely on Nvidia processors. Tencent shares lost 2.6%. Shares of Nvidia's rivals rose on Thursday, with AMD up 5.9%. Brent crude edged down 0.1% to $95.70 a barrel early Friday after Donald Trump said on Thursday that the US did not need a deal with Iran as the Middle East conflict drags on. In a social media post, Trump wrote:

“We don't need a deal with Iran.”