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What Happened Yesterday
Thursday, November 12, 2026
The 30-second version: Nvidia's founder and CEO quit, and the stock dropped hard before clawing back most of it. Then Trump said the U.S. doesn't need a deal with Iran, so oil jumped, and interest rates climbed. Stocks slipped less than half a percent. Your 401(k) had a dramatic day and a boring result.
Market | Thursday close | Move | Mood |
|---|---|---|---|
S&P 500 | 7,592.40 | -0.35% | Lost the coin toss, won the game |
Nasdaq Composite | 25,366.09 | -0.39% | Checked the injury report twice |
Dow Jones | 52,297.09 | -0.36% (-189 pts) | Stayed on the bench |
Chip index (SOX) | 10,506.67 | -0.54% | Shaken, not stirred |
VIX (fear gauge) | 18.70 | +6.9% | Called its mom |
Small caps (IWM, fund) | $278.44 | -1.64% | Hates higher rates the most |
Gold (GLD, fund) | $354.89 | -2.82% | Third straight loss, who is this |
U.S. oil (USO, fund) | $146.07 | +3.25% | Read Trump's post first |
10-year Treasury rate | 5.13% | up from 4.99% Tuesday | Mortgages felt that |
Bitcoin | $71,343 | -3.5% | Finally noticed something |
Fund rows: watch the move, not the price. The 10-year rate compares to Tuesday because the bond market took Wednesday off for Veterans Day.
The $1,000 test: $1,000 in an S&P 500 fund lost about $3.50 on Thursday. $1,000 in Nvidia was down about $143 at the worst moment and finished down about $43. $1,000 in AMD made about $59. Somebody's loss is always somebody's gain.
Nvidia lost its coach
The rest of the league went shopping
It's official. Jensen Huang resigned as Nvidia's CEO, president and board member Thursday morning, effective immediately. He co-founded the company in 1993 and ran it for its entire life. Chief financial officer Colette Kress is now interim CEO while the board looks for a permanent one. She keeps her finance job too, which is a lot of hats to wear in one week.
The exit follows reports of affairs, including one with a woman U.S. intelligence officials suspect of spying for Beijing. China denies that. Nvidia's board says it has no reason to believe company secrets were compromised.
The stock fell as much as 14% early, then fought back to close down 4.34% at $166.19. Meanwhile, the competition got a bump. AMD rose 5.86% and Broadcom 5.54%, on the bet that big customers will want a second supplier now that the first one is between coaches.
And because nothing is allowed to be normal, President Trump posted that there is "only one man" for the job: Apple's Tim Cook. Nobody at Nvidia has said anything about that. Tim Cook has not said anything either. Most people are just rereading the post.
The chips didn't get worse overnight. The customers didn't cancel. What changed is the guy who sold the whole AI story is gone, and a 14% drop that shrank to 4% says investors are nervous, not panicked. The real test is Tuesday, when Nvidia reports earnings with a CEO who has been on the job less than a week.
Trump said "no deal," and oil said "thank you"
"We don't need a deal with Iran," Trump posted Thursday. "Those days have long since passed." The market heard that as "the Strait of Hormuz stays a mess," since that narrow waterway is where a big chunk of the world's oil sails out.
Brent, the global oil benchmark, settled at $95.82 a barrel, up about 3.3%. U.S. crude settled at $88.74, up $2.21. That erased a chunk of oil's recent slide. Turns out a cheaper fill-up was a rumor, not a plan.
Interest rates climbed with it. The 10-year Treasury rate, the one mortgage rates follow, finished around 5.1%, up from 4.99% on Tuesday. Higher oil means higher prices, and higher prices mean the Fed has more reason to keep raising rates. Small companies, which borrow a lot, fell 1.64%. Gold, the thing people buy when they're scared, fell for a third straight day. Apparently even fear has a budget.
Weekly jobless claims came in at 200,000, which is still a very low number. Good for workers. Less good for anyone hoping the Fed eases up.
One social media post moved oil 3% and pushed up the rate mortgages follow. You didn't trade anything Thursday. You still paid for it at the pump and the loan desk.
Meanwhile, the AI shovel sellers had a great quarter
After the close, two companies that sell the equipment behind the AI boom said business is booming. Cisco, which makes the networking gear that connects data centers, posted record sales of $18.5 billion, up 24% from a year ago. Analysts polled by Zacks expected about $18.1 billion. Cisco also raised its forecast for the year to $74.8 billion to $75.8 billion, up from $72.2 billion to $73.4 billion.
Applied Materials makes the machines that make chips. It earned a record $4.16 a share and forecast about $11.1 billion in sales this quarter, above the $10.89 billion analysts polled by LSEG expected. Its stock had fallen 3.58% during the day, so it walked into its own good news already limping.
On the day AI's biggest celebrity quit, the companies selling the pipes and the power tools reported their best numbers in years. Coaches come and go. The stadium construction keeps going.
What to Watch Today
Friday, November 13. Times CT.
Before the open: As of about 2 AM CT, futures (bets on where the indexes will open) were a little lower to flat: Nasdaq 100 down about 0.3%, S&P 500 down about 0.1%, the Dow roughly unchanged. Brent oil was steady near $95.70.
7:30 AM: Producer prices for October, meaning what businesses pay for their supplies. Economists polled by Dow Jones expect a 0.4% rise for the month, after a 1.3% jump in September. Over the past year, forecasts call for about 6.6%, the biggest yearly rise since 2022.
9:30 AM: Weekly natural gas inventories.
All day: Nvidia headlines. The board is searching for a CEO, Trump has a candidate, and earnings land Tuesday, November 17.
The one thing that could ruin everyone's day: A hot producer price number. With the 10-year rate already above 5% and oil back near $96, a big surprise at 7:30 gives the Fed another reason to raise rates in December. Stocks have had a lot to handle this week. A rate scare on a Friday the 13th would be a little on the nose.
Bottom line: Nvidia lost its coach, oil got a pep talk from the President, and the S&P 500 shrugged off both. Watch the 7:30 number, and maybe skip walking under any ladders.
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Disclaimer: This is not financial advice. We are a newsletter with opinions and a spreadsheet. Do your own homework, and please don't pick your retirement fund based on who the President wants to run a chip company.
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