300296

In April 2025, tariffs and China export curbs pulled Nvidia Corp. (NASDAQ:NVDA) far below its long-term trend. Nineteen months later, the stock is back in that same territory, and this time the trigger is the company’s own chief executive.

On Monday, the rest of the chip sector bounced while Nvidia went the other way.

Shares fell more than 6% early in the session and were down 4.7% at $177.80 around midday in New York.

The stock now sits about 13% below its 200-day moving average of $204.61.

Nvidia has not traded this far below that line since late April 2025, in the weeks after Donald Trump‘s “Liberation Day” tariffs.

Nvidia daily chart and price-to-200-day moving average ratio. Source: TradingView

The Chip Rally Is Leaving Nvidia Behind

The split between Nvidia and its sector is unusual.

The VanEck Semiconductor ETF (NASDAQ:SMH) rose 4.8% on Monday, and the iShares Semiconductor ETF (NASDAQ:SOXX) gained 7.1%. Nvidia is the largest holding in the VanEck fund.

Advanced Micro Devices Inc. (NASDAQ:AMD) climbed 11.5%, and Broadcom Inc. (NASDAQ:AVGO) rose 9.1%. Meanwhile, the Nasdaq 100 added about 3.3%.

As a result, Nvidia is trailing its own sector ETF by about 9.5 percentage points in a single day.

The slide began before the weekend. On Nov. 5, Nvidia fell 9.3% during a broad chip selloff after the midterm elections. The stock is down about 13% from its Oct. 30 close and sits roughly 27% below its all-time intraday high of $243.37.

The Catalyst Is A Governance Question, Not Demand

The weekend brought a different kind of risk.

CEO Jensen Huang acknowledged an affair, which is understood to have been with an executive at Megaspeed. Megaspeed is a Singapore-based cloud provider and Nvidia customer that U.S. officials suspected of helping Chinese companies get around chip export controls.

Nvidia’s board has opened an independent investigation, overseen by independent directors and outside counsel. The company said it had “no reason to believe that either national security or NVIDIA secrets were compromised.”

On Monday, the story escalated.

According to The New York Times, a Commerce Department investigation into Megaspeed was transferred to the Justice Department after Nvidia’s general counsel contacted the agents working the case. The Justice Department is now running a criminal inquiry into Megaspeed, according to the report.

A Commerce Department spokesman said the agency had handled the matter “strictly by the book.” The Justice Department declined to comment.

Wall Street Asks Whether Huang Stays

“The big question every Nvidia and tech investor is asking this morning…Will Jensen stay on as CEO of Nvidia?” Dan Ives of Yorkville Ives said.

Ives sees only “a small chance” that Huang is removed or steps aside. However, Ives called the founder irreplaceable.

“Jensen is the core DNA of Nvidia and its AI success and ambitions are heavily tied to him staying on as CEO,” Ives said.

Ives keeps an Outperform rating and a $300 price target. Ives expects multiple congressional inquiries to weigh on the shares and more scrutiny of Nvidia’s chip sales to China.

What The April 2025 Parallel Shows

The last time Nvidia traded this far below its 200-day average, China was also part of the story.

On April 4, 2025, after the tariff announcement, the stock closed 25.8% below the line. Less than two weeks later, Nvidia disclosed about $5.5 billion in charges tied to new U.S. license requirements for its H20 chips sold to China. The stock fell 6.9% the next day.

In that episode, the damage came from policy. Demand was not the problem, and the stock recovered its 200-day average in May 2025.

This time, the risk comes from inside the company.

Nvidia reports fiscal third-quarter results on Nov. 17. Analysts expect revenue of $109.17 billion and earnings of $2.48 per share, according to Benzinga Pro data. The company has beaten revenue estimates for 16 straight quarters.

The 200-day gap shows how far sentiment has fallen. It does not show whether the numbers will matter more than the governance questions over the next eight days.

Photo: Shutterstock