Nvidia Faces Governance Crisis as Dollar Hits 19-Month High and Yen Tests 160

Thursday, November 12, 2026 | Daily briefing on Nvidia’s governance crisis, a 19-month dollar high, yen intervention risks, and Bitcoin’s 200-day test.

Daily Summary Our view: Nvidia is no longer just a stock story; it is a governance crisis. The board met last night to discuss ousting the CEO, and the company has no announced succession plan. The board will not remove him without finding a well-known figure from the tech sector, because Nvidia’s chip is at the center of the AI story. That means uncertainty could persist even after a decision is made. This also clouds the future of the industry’s largest supplier’s financing deals, and that is where the real risk lies. In contrast, yesterday’s session clearly showed the divergence: following CoreWeave’s earnings, AMD rose 7.32% and TSMC gained 4.25%, while Nvidia was left on its own. The dollar is at a 19-month high and the yen is pressing against the 160 threshold; if breached, intervention talk will reopen. Bitcoin is holding around 73,600, just above its 200-day moving average.

• Nvidia’s board discussed ousting Huang. The New York Times reported that Huang also had a relationship with a company executive who reported to him; the Wall Street Journal reported that the board is preparing to remove him. The stock fell 8.61% in after-hours trading to $158.78.
• There is no succession plan. Potential candidates mentioned include Ian Buck, one of the architects of the CUDA software system, and CFO Colette Kress. The stock is down 20% over the past week and 30% below its October 6 peak.
• Congress is also involved. Democratic senators asked the Trump administration to preserve all documents related to Nvidia’s chip exports to China.
• The dollar is at a 19-month high: 103.02, its highest level since April 2025. The odds of a 25-basis-point hike in December stand at 87.3%, and 12.7% for 50 basis points; some institutions, including Goldman Sachs, expect another hike early next year.
• The yen is pressing against the 160 threshold: 159.83. Japan’s top currency diplomat Mimura said it is “too early to forget” the summer intervention. Meanwhile, BOJ member Asada argued that an early hike could hurt growth.
• Oil dropped more than $1: Brent is at $91.29. Russia and Ukraine agreed on a major prisoner swap in Abu Dhabi; OPEC+ output neared pre-war levels in October, and U.S. inventories rose by 9 million barrels.
• Bitcoin is flat at $73,600, and ether is at $2,051. XRP is the weakest among majors with a 20.14% weekly loss and an RSI of 23.4; Solana is deep in oversold territory at 23.9.
• Today: UK Q3 GDP and industrial production; Germany current account balance; New York Fed President Williams joins a panel; Cisco, Applied Materials, and Cerebras earnings after the close.

Story of the DayNvidia crisis enters a governance phase The crisis at the world’s dominant supplier of AI processors entered a new phase on Wednesday night. According to a source speaking to Reuters, Nvidia’s board of directors met to decide whether to oust co-founder Jensen Huang, who has served as CEO for more than three decades. The crisis has two legs. The first occurred on November 8, when Huang admitted to having an extramarital affair with Alice Huang, a Chinese businesswoman whom U.S. intelligence officials believe was acting on behalf of Beijing; the company immediately launched an investigation and appointed outside legal counsel led by former Acting U.S. Attorney Joon Kim, stating there was “no reason” to believe U.S. national security or corporate secrets had been compromised. The second came Wednesday night: the New York Times reported that Huang had a second relationship with a company executive who reported to him, followed by a Wall Street Journal report that the board is preparing to remove him.

The market reaction was severe. The stock dropped 8.61% in after-hours trading to $158.78 alongside a wave of brokerage downgrades, after closing up 2.87% at $173.73 in Wednesday’s regular session. The stock is down 20% over the past week and 30% from its October 6 peak. There is a major problem: Nvidia has no succession plan. Potential interim CEO candidates include Ian Buck, one of the architects of the CUDA software system, and CFO Colette Kress. However, the board is not expected to remove him without replacing him with a well-known star from the tech industry, as Nvidia’s chip remains the centerpiece of the AI narrative.Under the company’s bylaws, directors can remove Huang with or without cause by a majority vote, though no final decision has been announced.

Contagion risk stems from two channels. The first is political: Democratic senators asked the Trump administration to preserve all documents linked to Nvidia’s chip exports to China, putting a Congressional investigation on the table. The second, and more important for the market, is financing: the future of Nvidia’s financing arrangements with numerous other companies in the sector has also become uncertain. This adds a new dimension to a debate we have been tracking for weeks; CoreWeave, Anthropic, and many neocloud companies grew with Nvidia’s direct or indirect backing, and the continuity of that support now hinges on a boardroom decision. The impact was visible even in crypto: perpetual futures tied to Nvidia on the decentralized exchange Hyperliquid fell 12% to $160.99, cumulative trading volume across all exchanges surpassed a record $4 billion, and NVDA perpetual contracts on Hyperliquid ranked fourth with $535 million in open interest, trailing only bitcoin, ether, and HYPE.

Divergence becomes clear: the sector is fine, Nvidia is separate Wednesday’s session made one thing clear: the market is now pricing the AI sector and Nvidia separately. Fueled by relief from CoreWeave’s earnings, chip stocks staged a broad rally; AMD rose 7.32% to $552.90, TSMC gained 4.25% to $413.35, and ASML climbed 1.76% to $1,534.42. Nvidia had also gained 2.87% during the regular session, but was left isolated after the news broke. The S&P 500 rose 1.31% to 7,619, nearing a full recovery of last week’s midterm election losses; the Nasdaq 100 jumped 2.28% to 28,374, and the VIX dropped 10.12% to 17.49.Optimism around AI lifted U.S. equities overnight, with positive developments surrounding CoreWeave and Anthropic adding to sector enthusiasm.

Apple sits at the other end of this divergence, delivering a standout performance: the stock hit a fresh record on Wednesday, rising 2.04% to $355.63—just 0.08% shy of its 52-week intraday high and up 46% from its January low. Fundamentals are supportive as well; Chinese regulators approved Apple Intelligence on iPads and Macs, and wait times for the foldable iPhone Duo are lengthening according to UBS data. However, the stock now trades at 39 times forward earnings and sits above the average analyst price target, meaning valuation headroom has narrowed. Three earnings reports are due after today’s close, all from beaten-down names: Cisco Systems is down 16% over three months and 23% off its June high; Applied Materials is down nearly 25% over three months and 46% off its June peak; Cerebras is down 57% over three months and 74% below its May high. Results from these three will show whether the CoreWeave relief extends across the broader sector. Asia gave back some gains on Thursday: Taiwan fell 2.63% to 43,092, the Nikkei slipped 0.89% to 60,705, and Korea declined 1.01% to 5,321; S&P 500 futures are down 0.4% and Nasdaq futures are off 1%, while European futures are up 0.4%–0.7%.

Market WrapCurrencies and bonds The dollar index rose 0.08%–0.15% into the 102.99–103.08 range,reaching its highest level since April 2025—a 19-month high—with an RSI of 62.7. The driver is straightforward Fed pricing: following hot inflation data and hawkish remarks, the market is pricing an 87.3% probability of a 25-basis-point hike in December and 12.7% for a 50-basis-point move, while several major institutions including Goldman Sachs expect another hike early next year. National Australia Bank senior market strategist Gavin Friend highlights today’s key event: New York Fed President John Williams joins a panel tonight and will be closely watched, because prior to the October meeting he believed the Fed had time on rate hikes; two weeks later, following a hotter-than-expected inflation report, Fed officials appear to be competing to talk about rate hikes, and any guidance from Williams will be scrutinized.

Today’s FX story is the yen. The dollar rose 0.66% against the yen to 159.76, hitting an intraday high of more than two months and pressing right up against the 160 threshold. Two opposing forces are colliding. On one side, Japan’s top currency diplomat Atsushi Mimura warned that it is “too early to forget” the summer’s official intervention, which briefly pushed the pair to its session low, though the relief proved short-lived. On the other side, BOJ board member Toichiro Asada—one of the two dovish members who dissented against September’s hike to 1.25%—pushed back against calls on the board for a near-term hike, saying premature rate increases could hurt growth and push down underlying inflation. Matsui Securities market analyst Sho Suzuki defines the threshold: if dollar-yen breaks above 160, caution will step up a notch; to go higher from there, the dollar would need to strengthen further, such as through rising Fed hike expectations or fading BOJ hike bets. One data point supports the BOJ side: Japan’s annual wholesale inflation accelerated to 7.1% in October from 6.8% in September, and many analysts in a Reuters poll expect the next BOJ hike next month. The euro fell 0.78% to 1.1082, sterling dropped 0.67% to 1.3259, the Australian dollar is at 0.6838, and the New Zealand dollar is at 0.5556. USD/TRY hit a fresh record high at 50.25. In bonds, the U.S. 10-year yield stands at 4.998% and the 30-year is at 5.356%.

Commodities Oil fell more than $1 on Thursday: Brent lost 1.58% to $91.29 and WTI declined 1.43% to $85.29, erasing Wednesday’s gains. Three factors are working in tandem. First, easing geopolitical tensions:Russian and Ukrainian negotiators agreed on a major prisoner exchange at the end of two days of peace talks in Abu Dhabi, though U.S. mediators noted that differences remain on major issues including territory. Nissan Securities Investment chief strategist Hiroyuki Kikukawa frames the backdrop: markets are falling on expectations that behind-the-scenes efforts to broker a ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine are continuing and that an escalation of the Iran conflict is unlikely ahead of next week’s U.S.-China summit; however, given the uncertainty surrounding the Strait of Hormuz, a severe market collapse is unlikely. Second, supply: OPEC+ crude production rose in October, nearing pre-war levels on higher Saudi output despite ongoing shipping disruptions in Hormuz. Third, inventories: U.S. crude stockpiles rose by 9 million barrels over the past week.On the other side, Iranian security chief Mohsen Rezaei stated on television that the country will not allow a single speck of enriched nuclear material to leave the country and warned of consequences if the U.S.launches new strikes.

Precious metals retreated under pressure from the strong dollar: gold fell 0.38% to $3,985.40, slipping below the $4,000 threshold and sitting 28.66% below its 52-week high; silver dropped 0.78% to $51.48, palladium fell 1.07% to $1,032.50, and platinum edged down 0.12% to $1,537.20. On a weekly basis, palladium remains up 3.27% and platinum is up 2.40%. Copper declined 0.83% to $6.22, down 2.82% on the week. Natural gas rose 1.09% to $3.25, remaining the strongest commodity with a 9.83% weekly gain.

Crypto Bitcoin slipped 0.9% on Thursday morning to the $73,617 range and has traded within the same narrow band for the past 48 hours, continuing to hold just above its 200-day moving average. Ether is down 0.83% at $2,051.40. Divergence among majors is pronounced: XRP fell 1.77% to $1.0423, ranking as the weakest in the group with a 20.14% weekly loss, while Dogecoin is down 13% on the week. Ether’s weekly loss of 15.39% is nearly double bitcoin’s 8.48% decline, indicating that de-risking is deepening from larger assets down to smaller ones. Bitcoin’s occasional strong positive correlation with Nvidia poses an additional risk channel today, while the 1% drop in Nasdaq futures is also being felt across crypto.

An important governance vote is coming up on the Zcash side, offering a clear example of how treasury management is debated in crypto projects. The written draft proposal was added to the specification repository on Wednesday, with coin holders and community panels scheduled to vote between November 16 and 30. The proposal involves removing 50,000 ZEC—worth roughly $50 million—from circulation out of the network’s grant treasury and returning its value via future mining rewards. This amount represents roughly 55% of the 91,453 ZEC recorded in the October treasury snapshot. If approved and activated via a network upgrade, the grant committee will be required to remove the coins from circulation within 30 days; their value will be transferred to the Network Sustainability Mechanism, introduced in the recent NU7 upgrade, which gradually redistributes ZEC through future block rewards. The proposal also halts the committee’s current 8% share of newly minted ZEC; instead, this allocation will accumulate until the next halving in a new Future Development and Legal Defense Fund, from which no one will initially be permitted to spend.

Levels to Watch

• Nvidia board decision: There is no succession plan, and according to Dollarhide, the board will not act without finding a well-known replacement. Uncertainty may persist even after a decision; the primary risk is the future of the company’s industry financing arrangements.
• USD/JPY, 160: According to Suzuki, caution steps up a notch above this threshold. Breaking higher requires either further escalation in Fed rate hike expectations or a softening in BOJ expectations; Mimura reminded markets of intervention.
• Bitcoin 200-day moving average, $73,150: Price has traded in a tight band just above this level for two days. A sustained break below opens a target toward $70,500.
• Cisco, Applied Materials, and Cerebras earnings, tonight: All three are down between 23% and 74% from their highs. This serves as a test of whether the CoreWeave relief is spreading across the broader sector.
• Williams speech, tonight: According to Friend, he previously believed the Fed had time before the October meeting; following hot inflation, any guidance he offers will be priced in immediately.
• Gold, $4,000: Price has slipped below the threshold. A strong dollar and rising real yields continue to exert pressure; the metal sits 28.66% below its 52-week high.

Calendar of the Week

Date	Day	Event
November 12	Thursday	UK Q3 GDP, industrial production, and trade balance; Germany current account balance; NY Fed President Williams joins a panel; UK 6-year gilt auction; Cisco, Applied Materials, and Cerebras earnings after the close; Nebius reports before the open
November 13	Friday	U.S. Producer Price Index (PPI); bitcoin weekly options expiry
November 16–30	—	Zcash treasury vote (proposal to remove 50,000 ZEC from circulation)
November 17	Tuesday	Anthropic Australia retail offer closes
November 18	Wednesday	Fed October meeting minutes
Next week	—	U.S.-China summit; Nvidia earnings; Anthropic IPO pricing
December 9	Wednesday	FOMC decision; 87.3% probability of a 25 bps hike, 12.7% for 50 bps