Asian stocks rose 0.3% as investors weighed the fallout from Nvidia Corp.’s leadership upheaval. Nvidia shares dropped 4.3% after Chief Executive Officer Jensen Huang was ousted. US equity futures also advanced, even after benchmarks fell Thursday. Mike Pyle said, “This is going to be a more differentiated story” for market players.
Synopsis
The MSCI Asia Pacific Index rose 0.3%, led by gains in South Korea. US equity futures also advanced, with Nasdaq 100 contracts up 0.6% and those for the S&P 500 gaining 0.4% after both underlying benchmarks fell Thursday. Nvidia, the company at the heart of the AI boom, dropped 4.3% after Chief Executive Officer Jensen Huang was ousted.
Asian stocks edged higher as investors weighed the fallout from Nvidia Corp.’s leadership upheaval on the broader artificial-intelligence trade. Oil and Treasury yields held their gains.
The MSCI Asia Pacific Index rose 0.3%, led by gains in South Korea. US equity futures also advanced, with Nasdaq 100 contracts up 0.6% and those for the S&P 500 gaining 0.4% after both underlying benchmarks fell Thursday. Nvidia, the company at the heart of the AI boom, dropped 4.3% after Chief Executive Officer Jensen Huang was ousted.
S&P 500 Top Gainers
Broadcom364.36(5.54%)
Arista Networks206.63(5.06%)
Valero Energy374.95(3.09%)
S&P 500 Top Losers
Corteva9.19(-24.30%)
Global Payments88.19(-12.01%)
Super Micro Computer26.99(-11.30%)
Coterra Energy32.56(-8.62%)
US oil traded around $88.70 a barrel after President Donald Trump said the US could forgo a deal with Iran. Treasury yields held near Thursday’s highs as traders braced for faster Fed rate hikes, while the dollar edged higher. Gold steadied after a three-session decline and Bitcoin traded around $71,300.
The upheaval at Nvidia is testing the AI trade without derailing the broader investment boom. Instead, it may make investors more selective, favoring companies best placed to benefit from continued spending.
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“This is going to be a more differentiated story and players that have stronger balance sheets that are more focused on doing the hard work of that community engagement are likely to be the winners in this next stage of the buildout,” Mike Pyle, deputy head of BlackRock’s Portfolio Management Group, said in an interview on Bloomberg Television.
That shift was already evident on Wall Street. Shares of Broadcom Inc. and Advanced Micro Devices Inc., which compete with Nvidia in parts of the AI chip market, rallied over 5% as investors sought potential beneficiaries from the industry leader’s setback.
Nvidia’s market capitalization briefly dropped below $4 trillion with revelations about Huang’s extramarital affairs, including one with a suspected Chinese spy, rattling investors ahead of earnings. A related probe into suspected spy Alice Huang and efforts to smuggle Super Micro Computer Inc. products to China sent that company’s shares down as much as 16%, the most in more than five months.
“Nvidia’s earnings already demand close attention, but they will be under an even brighter spotlight next week,” said Bret Kenwell at eToro. “Investors will be looking to Nvidia for a fresh read on demand and a reason to regain confidence.”
Two other events next week may provide a broader test of appetite for the AI trade: Anthropic PBC’s highly anticipated IPO and CoreWeave Inc.’s plan to raise at least $4 billion through an investment-grade loan offering. Strong institutional demand for Anthropic suggests appetite for AI exposure remains robust.
In Asia, traders will also be watching the yen after it weakened past 160 per dollar for the first time since September, reviving the prospect that Japanese authorities may intervene to support the currency.
“Markets are jittery about potential FX intervention whenever we approach the 160 area,” said Win Thin, chief economist at Bank of Nassau 1982.
Higher oil prices added to pressure on Treasuries, extending a selloff sparked Tuesday by hotter-than-expected inflation and signals that Fed officials may favor more aggressive rate hikes. Policy-sensitive two-year yields climbed 14 basis points, while 10-year yields rose 13 basis points.
“Investors continue to pencil in more rate hikes,” said Gennadiy Goldberg, head of US interest rates strategy at TD Securities. While setbacks for US technology shares — which benefited Treasuries last month — “could short-circuit the bearish move at some point, the macro underpinnings are the ones driving Treasuries right now.”
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