Nvidia Faces Earnings Test After Huang Exit Drags Stock to 2012-Era Streak

Nvidia shares fell roughly 5% in Thursday trading after Chief Executive Jensen Huang resigned with immediate effect. The stock is now heading for its sixth consecutive weekly decline. That would mark its longest losing streak since 2012.

The company reports quarterly results on Tuesday, November 17. Analysts forecast revenue of approximately $109.2 billion. But the report covers a period when Huang still ran the company. The numbers will say little about how Nvidia performs under new leadership, and investors must weigh a divided Wall Street before the print.

The drop puts a direct question to anyone buying the dip. Would strong earnings be enough to restore confidence in a company that just lost its founder-CEO without a transition period? The market's first answer was negative. Trading volume sent the stock toward a weekly loss that would extend a decline unmatched in more than a decade.

How did analysts react to the resignation?

Two major brokerages downgraded the stock outright.

• Bernstein cut Nvidia to Market Perform and halved its price target from $400 to $200.
• Oppenheimer downgraded the shares to Perform and removed its price target altogether.

The Bernstein reduction is the sharpest single move on the Street. A $400 target implied investors expected the stock to more than double from pre-resignation levels. The new $200 target halves that expectation in one step. Oppenheimer went further in structure, dropping its target entirely rather than committing to a number.

Who kept a positive rating?

Several banks trimmed targets while maintaining buy-side ratings.

• Wells Fargo kept an Overweight rating but cut its target from $315 to $300.
• Citi maintained Buy while reducing its target from $285 to $225.
• Bank of America also held Buy, cutting its target from $350 to $280.

Morgan Stanley took a middle path. The bank removed Nvidia from its top-pick list but kept an Overweight rating and a $300 target. That move signals reduced conviction rather than a negative view: Nvidia stays a buy in Morgan Stanley's framework, but it no longer ranks among the firm's highest-conviction names.

The spread between the surviving targets is wide. Post-cut targets now range from $200 at Bernstein to $300 at Wells Fargo and Morgan Stanley, a gap that reflects deep uncertainty about how the market should price a Huang-less Nvidia.

What does the November 17 report actually measure?

The earnings cover a quarter in which Huang led the company throughout. Revenue near $109.2 billion, if delivered, would confirm the business momentum built under his tenure. It would not test the execution of whoever follows him.

That mismatch between reported results and forward risk sits at the center of the analyst split. The downgrades and target cuts all address the period after the report, not the quarter inside it.

Is the stock cheap here?

The roughly 5% single-day drop and the six-week slide have compressed the share price to levels that some investors may read as discounted. The Bernstein and Oppenheimer moves argue the discount is justified until the market sees evidence that Nvidia can operate without its founder. The banks that kept Buy ratings take the opposite view: the business fundamentals have not changed, only the leadership.

Tuesday's report will not settle that argument on its own, because it looks backward. The decisive data will arrive in later quarters, when the company's results begin to reflect post-Huang execution.

Until then, price targets from $200 to $300 define the range within which the Street believes Nvidia now trades, and the sixth straight weekly loss shows sellers still control the tape ahead of the November 17 print.