Asian Equities Rebound as Kospi Climbs 1.97% Following Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang Resignation

Asian equities staged an aggressive rebound on Friday, November 13. South Korea led the offensive, lifting benchmark bourses across the region as institutional desks dissected the seismic leadership shake-up at Nvidia and recalculated the trajectory of the artificial intelligence trade.

Local money pushed the MSCI Asia Pacific Index up 0.3%. Seoul's Kospi paced the rally with a sharp 1.97% advance, while Tokyo broke out of an early funk—Japan's Nikkei 225 jumped 1.48% and the broader Topix index added 0.72%. Hong Kong took a different path, where Hang Seng index futures shed 0.3%. In India, early trading signals on the GIFT Nifty pointed toward a muted, defensive start for domestic benchmarks in Mumbai.

The currency desk delivered its own fireworks. The Japanese yen weakened past 160 per dollar for the first time since September before snapping back to 159.92 on heavy central bank intervention talk. Japan spent 15.4 trillion yen on currency market interventions this past summer to defend its exchange rate. Atsushi Mimura, Japan's chief currency official, issued a terse warning to speculators, stating that recent foreign exchange fluctuations looked "too fast."

Wall Street futures mounted a turnaround overnight. Contracts tracking the tech-heavy Nasdaq 100 gained 0.6% and S&P 500 futures rose 0.4%, shaking off Thursday's bruising cash session. Yet the debt market flashed red. A fixed-income selloff that began Tuesday gathered pace after hotter-than-expected inflation prints rattled traders. Two-year US Treasury yields shot up 14 basis points, and benchmark 10-year yields climbed 13 basis points. San Francisco Federal Reserve President Mary Daly struck a hawkish tone, warning that additional benchmark rate hikes would probably be needed to bring stubborn price pressures under control.

The $2.2 Trillion Capital Realignment at Nvidia

Then came the shockwave from Santa Clara. Nvidia's board announced that co-founder Jensen Huang had resigned as president and chief executive officer with immediate effect. Chief Financial Officer Colette Kress immediately took over as interim CEO while retaining her role as finance chief.

Nvidia shares plunged more than 14% on Thursday—its worst single-day rout since January 27, 2025, when the emergence of China's DeepSeek model triggered an industry panic. The stock recovered toward the closing bell to end roughly 8% down. Even so, the damage was immense. Nvidia has shed roughly 35% from its record October peak of $239.24, erasing $2.2 trillion in market capitalization in a matter of weeks.

The collapse scrambled the corporate heavyweight hierarchy. Nvidia surrendered its crown, slipping to third place globally with a market capitalization of $3.6 trillion. Apple secured the undisputed top spot at $5.2 trillion, while Microsoft claimed second position at $3.9 trillion.

Semiconductor Rotation and Smuggling Fallout

Portfolio managers did not dump semiconductors wholesale. They rotated. Rivals Advanced Micro Devices and Broadcom—both competing with Nvidia across high-end accelerator categories—surged more than 5% as buyers sought alternative computing plays.

Server builder Super Micro Computer faced severe selling pressure. Shares crashed as much as 16%, logging their steepest drop in more than five months after an official probe scrutinized illicit efforts to smuggle its hardware systems into China.

Market Context: Despite the executive purge at Nvidia, institutional risk appetite for underlying AI infrastructure remains intact. Traders are already lining up capital for Anthropic's public debut, alongside CoreWeave's syndicated plan to tap debt markets for at least $4 billion via an investment-grade loan offering next week.

Crude Markets Brace for Mideast Supply Choke

Energy desks traded on edge. Brent crude held firm at $95.95 a barrel in early Asian hours after settling near $96 on Thursday, while West Texas Intermediate hovered just below $89 following a 2.6% advance in the prior session.

Geopolitical risk premiums surged after US President Donald Trump signaled that Washington could walk away from a diplomatic pact with Iran. Trump instructed Vice President JD Vance to focus federal attention on domestic priorities rather than prolong negotiations with Tehran—a hard pivot that snuffed out immediate prospects for a diplomatic ceasefire and left West Asian maritime supply corridors exposed to sustained disruption.