Nvidia, the engine of the AI boom, is in a bear market. Shares sank to about $177 on Monday, 26% below their October record, as a China spy scandal reached its CEO.
A bear market means a fall of 20% or more from a peak. Nvidia sits in most US index funds, so ordinary savers share the pain.
A China Smuggling Probe Lands at the Justice Department
Nvidia’s board opened an inquiry Sunday after CEO Jensen Huang admitted an affair with Alice Huang, whom US intelligence reportedly suspected of spying for China.
Her former employer, Megaspeed, is the bigger risk. The Singapore firm bought billions in Nvidia gear for Chinese clients. US officials suspected some chips were smuggled into China despite export bans.
Commerce Department investigators handed that case to the Justice Department after Nvidia’s lawyers contacted them, citing a senior official’s approval, The New York Times reported.
The Times found no proof Nvidia changed the outcome, and Nvidia says it fights smuggling. Still, former SEC Chair Gary Gensler sees a reckoning.
“Once they get the results of the investigation, they’ll have some tough choices,” he said.
Google Launches 2 Chips to Rival Nvidia
Amid the spy woes, Google unveiled two AI chips on Monday to rival Nvidia’s. Anthropic, Meta, and Oracle already use its tensor processing units (TPUs), and OpenAI reportedly plans to buy.
Bloomberg Intelligence sees TPU sales rising from about $12 billion this year to over $135 billion by 2028. Alphabet stock rose 2.4% toward $295.
Why Some Investors See an Nvidia Bottom
Nvidia lost about 12% in five days, extending Wall Street’s $2.5 trillion crash.
Analyst mood collapsed too. CryptoQuant’s analyst consensus index fell from +0.4 on October 10 to -2.6 on November 9, its most bearish reading on record.
CryptoQuant CEO Ki Young Ju said the story flipped from “AI supercycle” to “dot-com bubble” in four weeks. Yet he sees hope.
“Extreme bearishness often signals the end of selling, not the start,” he wrote.
Meanwhile., according to investor Anthony Pompliano, it would be “objectively hilarious” if Huang’s ongoing woes marked the bottom of the AI selloff.
The board’s findings and Nvidia’s next earnings will test that bet.
