Kospi and Nikkei Open Higher as Asia's Chip Stocks Shrug Off Nvidia's 8% Fall

South Korea's Kospi rose 10.58 points, or 0.2%, to 5,385.94 at the opening bell on Thursday, Nov. 12, hours after Nvidia fell 8% in extended trading on reports its board is preparing to oust CEO Jensen Huang. Japan's Nikkei 225 opened up 139.28 points, or 0.23%, at 61,387.87, according to an opening report from TechFlow. Nvidia, the world's most important buyer of Korean memory and Japanese chip-testing gear, dropped to $159.95 at about 5:35 p.m. New York time on Wednesday, Bloomberg reported, after closing the regular session at $173.73.

Within Seoul's market, Samsung Electronics rose 1.9% and SK hynix 0.5% at the open. Both had already jumped on Wednesday, when the Kospi closed up 2.60% at 5,375.36. Samsung finished at 206,000 won, up 3.57%, and SK hynix rose 5.36%. The Nikkei's Wednesday gain was led by test-equipment maker Advantest, which alone added about 378 points to the benchmark, followed by Tokyo Electron at about 135 points.

What triggered the Nvidia selloff?

The Wall Street Journal reported that Nvidia's board is preparing to oust co-founder and chief executive Jensen Huang. The New York Times separately reported that Huang had a relationship with an Nvidia executive who reports to him. Bloomberg later reported, citing a person familiar with the situation, that Nvidia has been working with an outside firm to identify potential replacements and is weighing an interim chief executive, according to OfficeChai's account. Nvidia did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

US index futures absorbed the wider damage. When trading resumed at 6 p.m. New York time, Nasdaq 100 futures were down about 0.8% and S&P 500 futures about 0.3%, investingLive reported. Taiwan, South Korea and Japan, with their heavy weightings in Nvidia suppliers, would be the first cash markets to trade the news. AMD rose 3.8% after hours. Opening moves for Advantest, Tokyo Electron and SoftBank Group, the Japanese stocks most tied to Nvidia's fortunes, had not been reported at publication time.

Why did memory stocks hold up?

Seoul entered Thursday on the back of a strong US memory session. Micron traded at $817.81 at 2:58 p.m. ET on Wednesday, up 12.78%, after falling 21% over the previous month, Bloomingbit reported. Investing.com tied the rally to CoreWeave's third-quarter revenue of $3.66 billion, up 168% from a year earlier, with a $132.5 billion backlog, and to Anthropic's updated IPO filing, which showed Micron taking about $1.0 billion of a concurrent private placement.

Goldman Sachs analyst James Schneider kept a Neutral rating and a $1,250 price target on Micron, saying its risk-reward is improving on expected free cash flow, but said he still prefers Samsung Electronics and SK hynix in memory on relative valuation. Schneider argues memory makers should be valued on price to tangible book; on that basis Micron trades at about 5.4 times, and the two Korean companies at lower multiples.

That valuation gap helps explain the divergence. Korean memory makers' earnings depend on AI memory demand across all chip buyers, not on who runs Nvidia. Korean retail investors have also piled into leveraged US chip exposure, with 74% of a week's US buying going into one triple-leveraged chip ETF, making Seoul sensitive to any turn in US chip sentiment.

What comes next?

Wall Street had closed higher on Wednesday before the Nvidia reports. The Dow rose 0.49%, the S&P 500 gained 1.31% and the Nasdaq Composite advanced 1.6%, Yonhap noted, as CoreWeave's results eased worries about AI spending. In Europe, the STOXX 600 closed at a record.

Three items now set the tone for Asian chip trade: whether Advantest, Tokyo Electron and SoftBank, which have swung with Nvidia all week, hold through the Tokyo morning; whether Nvidia's board announces a decision on Huang; and Nvidia's quarterly results, due on Nov. 17, which will test whether the memory-led rally can survive a leadership crisis at its largest customer.