Nvidia slides for a sixth week as Jensen Huang exits and leadership shifts to Colette Kress

What happened

Investor pessimism predated this week, but selling picked up speed, handing Nvidia a sixth straight weekly loss and erasing roughly 30% of its market cap - about $1.7 trillion. The decline pushed shares back below Apple, even though Nvidia had spent large portions of the year ranked the most valuable company on the planet.

Jensen Huang, the co-founder who ran Nvidia for 33 years, resigned early Thursday after reports surfaced about two relationships - one said to involve a suspected Chinese spy and the second tied to an Nvidia employee. Over the weekend he sent employees a letter acknowledging he had been "unfaithful to my wife," and on Wednesday night the board met after The New York Times reported the other relationship involved the vice president of health care at the company. The board named Colette Kress, the finance chief, to serve as interim CEO while the hunt for a permanent successor begins. Huang's exit capped a swift turn for an executive who had become one of President Donald Trump's most prominent corporate allies.

Market reaction and analyst views

Shares fell 13% this week, the sharpest weekly drop since April 2025. The previous week's almost 9% drop followed midterm elections that produced sweeping Democratic victories and approved dozens of ballot initiatives that may hinder the speed of AI infrastructure expansion. In the run-up to the vote, AI stocks, including Nvidia, had been weakening on worries that higher interest rates would squeeze borrowers. Nvidia earns robust profits, but many large customers known as neoclouds rely heavily on debt markets.

Analysts moved quickly to recalibrate. D.A. Davidson's Gil Luria maintained a buy rating yet cut his price objective to $200, down from $300, writing, "With the unfortunate departure of CEO Jensen Huang we expect a challenging transition for NVIDIA over the next few months," and adding, "We believe the market has appropriately adjusted for this transition." Oppenheimer told clients that even if results are solid, "we expect fundamentals to take a backseat near term," and cautioned that Huang's departure could leave a "lingering share overhang."

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What to watch next

Pressure now shifts to Kress. Nvidia reports Tuesday, with LSEG data showing expectations for 91% year over year revenue growth to $108.9 billion. That amounts to 18x the figure posted in the comparable quarter of 2022, right before OpenAI released ChatGPT and sparked the generative AI boom.

Why it matters for your portfolio

Leadership uncertainty can overshadow even strong fundamentals, and that is the setup into earnings. Add in policy overhang from the midterms and rate sensitivity among Nvidia's major, debt-dependent customers, and near-term volatility remains in play even as revenue forecasts stay lofty.

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