Asian stocks fragile, Nvidia plummets as board to decide CEO's fate

By Gregor Stuart Hunter

SINGAPORE, Nov 12 (Reuters) - Global stocks wobbled at the start of Asian trade on Thursday, while Nvidia shares plunged in after-hours trading on news that its board may oust longtime CEO Jensen Huang.

Nvidia's board is meeting late Wednesday to decide whether to oust Huang, a source familiar with the matter said, as the world's dominant supplier of AI processors grapples with the fallout of allegations that he had an affair with a suspected spy for China.

The New York Times has also reported that Huang had had an affair with a company executive who reported to him. 

"It looks bad from every single angle," said Jake Dollarhide, chief executive officer at Longbow Asset Management in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

"I believe the board won't oust him until they have an all-star, a known entity in the tech sector, to replace him," he said. "At the end of the day, let's not forget that the Nvidia chip is the centrepiece of the AI story."

Shares in Nvidia slid more than 8% after the bell, weighing on S&P 500 e-mini futures, which slipped 0.4%.

Regional indexes fared better after a choppy start. South Korea's Kospi rose 0.2%, Taiwanese shares gained 0.5%, Japan's Nikkei 225 climbed 0.5% and MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan was 0.1% lower, weighed down by shares in Hong Kong.

Stocks on Wall Street made gains on Wednesday, with the S&P 500 rising 1.3% and coming close to retracing all of the losses since last week's US midterm elections.

"Renewed optimism around AI drove US equities higher overnight, with positive developments around CoreWeave and Anthropic adding to enthusiasm around the sector and helping the S&P 500 and NASDAQ rally," Westpac analysts wrote in a note.

The dollar index, which measures the greenback's strength against a basket of six currencies, was steady in Asian trade at 102.87, its highest level since April 9 last year in the aftermath of Trump's Liberation Day tariff announcement. The currency rose 0.6% on Wednesday as traders repriced the odds the Federal Reserve will lift interest rates next month.

Fed funds futures are pricing an 87.3% chance of a 25-basis-point hike at the US central bank's next two-day meeting on December 9, compared to a 12.7% chance of a larger 50-basis-points hike, according to the CME Group's FedWatch tool.

In cryptocurrencies, bitcoin slipped 0.9% to $73,617.58, while ether was 0.9% lower at $2,049.44.

(Reporting by Gregor Stuart Hunter; Editing by Edwina Gibbs)