- Nvidia shares sank another 2.01% on Friday, closing below a $4 trillion market capitalization for the first time since July 2025, CNBC reported. The stock declined 12.75% on the week, marking its sixth straight weekly drop and its longest such streak since 2012, after founder Jensen Huang resigned on Thursday and the board named finance chief Colette Kress interim CEO.
- CNBC said the chipmaker has lost 30% of its value during the losing streak, a drop of roughly $1.7 trillion in market cap that pushed the company below Apple. Last week, before Huang’s departure, the shares had already dropped about 9%, much of it after the midterm elections. Friday’s decline followed a sharp Thursday session in which the stock fell steeply before recovering to close just 4% lower.
- Wall Street kept cutting its forecasts. D.A. Davidson’s Gil Luria lowered his price target to $200 from $300 but kept a buy rating, writing that he expects “a challenging transition” over the next few months; that is a one-third cut, by our calculation. HSBC’s Frank Lee downgraded the stock to hold from buy and cut his target to $170 from $365, a 53% cut, by our calculation, implying upside of just 2.3% from Thursday’s close. CNBC said shares fell more than 4% after the HSBC note, and that Truist, Evercore ISI, William Blair, Oppenheimer and Bernstein also lowered ratings this week.
- Lee argued the stock will struggle until a permanent CEO is named and can show “execution capabilities,” and he flagged tighter export restrictions as a risk that could dent fiscal 2028 earnings per share by 13%. He said 11% of revenue over the past six quarters came from countries excluding the United States and Taiwan. Analysts, citing LSEG, are projecting 91% year-over-year revenue growth to $108.9 billion when Nvidia reports on Tuesday, CNBC said, while Oppenheimer wrote that “fundamentals [are expected] to take a backseat near term.”
What Happened?
Huang, who co-founded Nvidia and led it for 33 years, resigned Thursday after reports of extramarital affairs, including one with a woman U.S. intelligence officials have linked to Chinese intelligence and another with Kimberly Powell, the company’s vice president of health care. Reuters later reported a relationship with a second, unnamed Nvidia employee, CNBC said. Before the resignation, several analysts had told CNBC that losing Huang could cost the company as much as 20% of its market value. ODDO BHF’s Stephane Houri told CNBC on Friday that the architecture of the AI industry “really depended on the vision” and expertise of Huang.
Why It Matters?
The $4 trillion threshold is more than a round number: it marks the first time since July 2025 that the former market leader has closed beneath that line, and it confirms Apple has retaken the top slot on a week when Apple itself made a new high. A six-week, roughly 30% drawdown also leaves less room for error into Tuesday’s print. Luria’s decision to keep a buy rating even after a one-third target cut, and HSBC’s move the other way, show how divided the Street is between treating this as a discounted franchise and treating the leadership vacuum as an open-ended overhang.
What’s Next?
The first test is Tuesday’s earnings and whether Kress, in her first call as interim CEO, can defend Huang-era forecasts. Investors will also watch whether Friday’s close below $4 trillion attracts more systematic selling and whether further rating cuts follow if the board does not quickly name a search firm and a succession plan. Export-control risk, which HSBC put at 13% of fiscal 2028 earnings in a restriction scenario, will stay in focus as lawmakers press Huang and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick to testify.
