SINGAPORE – Nvidia lost about US$700 billion in market value over the past week as its chief executive, Jensen Huang, resigned on Nov 12 following reports of a third alleged extramarital affair involving a company executive.
The chipmaker’s share price fell by more than 12% through the week, its sixth straight weekly drop and the longest losing streak since 2012. Once the world’s most valuable company, Nvidia has since October lost about US$1.8 trillion in market value.
Nvidia announced its chief financial officer Colette Kress will take over as interim CEO while it commences its search for a new leader. Its board was reported by the media to have approached British chip designer Arm Holdings CEO Rene Haas in its search for a potential successor, even as prediction market traders speculated that Huang could make a comeback.
Many in the industry, from Nvidia employees to Elon Musk, have voiced support for Huang, who has run Nvidia for the past 30 years and become one of the most influential executives leading the AI boom.
Huang’s departure added to the volatility in tech stocks following the US midterm elections.
Shares of chipmakers AMD and Broadcom closed higher on Nov 12 as analysts said the two companies could pick up orders amid Nvidia’s turmoil. At least two investment firms also upgraded their ratings on AMD, citing higher sales of server racks and early shipments of its AI chips.
But tech stocks fell again when markets opened the following day, with chipmakers and major cloud providers among the decliners. AMD fell more than 8%, while Broadcom dropped more than 4%.
Microsoft’s shares recovered marginally after falling through the week, but still closed 0.3% lower than a week ago as it grappled with a worldwide outage of its Outlook and Teams services on Nov 13 that lasted for more than 24 hours.
The Nasdaq closed 0.9% lower, while the S&P 500 also fell 0.4%
Singapore tech stocks closed the week higher, rebounding after the previous week’s rout following the US mid-term elections.
Semiconductor equipment maker AEM Holdings rose by 14.5% through the week to close at $7.10, while UMS Integration was up 8.9% at $1.84. Frencken Group, another SGX-listed company on the global semiconductor supply chain dealing in high-precision component manufacturing, also closed the week 6.4% higher at $1.84.
Singtel CEO sells 2m shares after telco raises guidance
Singtel Group CEO Yuen Kuan Moon on Nov 13 sold 2 million shares in the company at $4.07 per share, or $8.14 million in total.
The transaction came hours after Singtel raised its forecast for operating profit growth at the businesses it runs directly. It now expects mid- to high-single-digit growth for the 2027 financial year, up from the low- to mid-single-digit growth it forecast in May.
The revision came on the back of an 8.7% rise in first-half earnings before interest and taxes (EBIT) for its operating companies to $902 million, led by strong performance by Australian subsidiary Optus, tech service provider NCS and its digital infrastructure arm Digital InfraCo.
The group’s operating revenue also rose 5.5% to $7.3 billion, up from $6.9 billion in the year-ago period.
But the telco still reported a 54.7 per cent drop in net profit to $1.5 billion for the first half ended Sept 30, in the absence of one-off gains in the year-ago period totalling $2.2 billion from the partial stake sale in Indian telco Airtel and Thailand’s Intouch-Gulf Energy merger.
Its Singapore business also saw EBIT drop 4.5% as a result of the absence of one-off income in the previous year, though mobile service revenue grew 3.8% in the second quarter compared to the first quarter – its second consecutive quarter of sequential growth.
Still, group chief financial officer Arthur Lang said at the media briefing for the telco’s first-half results that the company was entering the second half of the year “with a renewed confidence versus six months ago”.
He noted that Singtel had previously set a lower guidance due to the growing level of uncertainty, as the Strait of Hormuz crisis had just broken out and rising inflation was a concern.
Yuen added that the Nvidia leadership crisis would likely not have an impact on deliveries of chips for its sovereign artificial-intelligence cloud arm RE:AI, under Digital InfraCo.
The company provides local infrastructure for enterprises and government agencies to train and deploy AI models while keeping their data within Singapore, and is currently the only Singtel business that purchases chips directly from Nvidia.
Around 2 MW of chips is due to be deployed from the fourth quarter of FY2027, and the shipment is expected to arrive on schedule.
Shares of Singtel fell by 3.6% when the market opened on Nov 13, before paring losses to close the week 0.5% higher at $4.11.
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Jet fuel prices weigh on SIA’s first-half performance
Singapore Airlines reported a 43.9% slump in net profit to $134 million for the first-half its 2027 financial year, as high fuel costs continued to weigh on its earnings.
Despite a strong second quarter recording $5.6 billion in revenue, 14.3% higher year on year, and operating profit up 16.3% year on year to $463 million, total expenditure also rose by 14.1% to a hefty $5.1 billion over the same period.
This was mainly due to a surge in fuel prices as a result of the war in the Middle East, with the group’s fuel costs before hedging rising 63.3% to $2.1 billion during the quarter.
Jet fuel prices were lower in the second quarter than the first quarter, said group chief financial officer JoAnn Tan at the airline’s results briefing on Nov 12. But the surge still led to a 90.3% increase in fuel costs before hedging for the first half of the financial year.
Chief executive Goh Choon Phong added that the airline would review the feedback it has received on its newly unveiled business-class seats, which has drawn criticism for its shape and colour palette, and explore the possibility of making further refinements.
SIA is revamping its seats across all four cabin classes in a fleetwide revamp costing $2 billion.
Shares of the airline closed the week 3% higher at $7.16.
CDL warns of “significantly weaker second-half”
City Developments Limited (CDL) said on Nov 11 that it has pushed back some of its deals slated for completion by the end of 2026 to the following financial year, due to persistent inflation and elevated interest rates.
Foreign exchange losses are likely to also weigh on earnings. It noted specifically that the Korean won’s appreciation against the Singdollar since July has led to significant foreign exchange losses for its South Korean subsidiary on a Singdollar-denominated loan owed to it by another entity.
As a result, the developer acknowledged that the second half of the 2026 financial year would be “significantly weaker” than a year earlier.
Shares of CDL slumped on Nov 12, one day after the group gave its outlook, falling 10.1% to a one-year low of $6.40 when the market opened, before paring losses to close at $6.64. Shares remained flat on Friday, 8% lower than the previous week’s close.
CDL added that it is revaluing its property portfolio, which could lead to impairment losses. While its Singapore property sales picked up in the third quarter, its China office portfolio “continued to face market challenges” and the group is “actively pursuing divestment initiatives”.
The weaker outlook comes after CDL unveiled its new strategy in September targeting $6 billion in asset disposals by 2029. A good part of divestments – roughly a third – will come out of its core hotels business, and almost half from commercial assets.
Other market movers
Starhub and Genting Singapore reported lower net profit for the third quarter.
Starhub saw an 82.4% drop in net profit to $3.9 million for the third quarter ended Sept 30, attributing the fall to the impact of high operating leverage, as well as higher depreciation and amortisation.
It said that despite rising revenue, earnings before tax, interest, depreciation and amortisation continued to decrease because of lower gross profit, higher operating expenditure and lower income from other avenues. Operating expenses rose mainly because of higher staff costs, which StarHub said reflected “deliberate investments in capabilities and business growth”.
The telco’s shares closed the week 1.9% lower at $1.03.
Genting Singapore’s shares hit a one-year low of 57 cents on Nov 13, a day after the integrated resort operator reported a 42.2% drop in net profit to $54.7 million.
It attributed its performance to softer premium gaming activity, in line with the trend in key regional markets, while an unfavourable rolling win rate in September further hit revenue, the group said.
The counter closed the week at 57.5 cents, 5.7% lower than the previous week.
What to look out for next week
Nvidia is scheduled to announce its third-quarter results on Nov 17 after the US market closes.
Following Huang’s resignation earlier this week, CFO and newly appointed interim CEO Colette Kress is set to lead the earnings call.
Anthropic, which develops the AI large language model Claude, will begin trading on Nasdaq on Nov 19.
Anthropic has set an expected IPO price range of US$70.00 to US$78.00 per share, with the final offer price scheduled to be determined on Nov 18.
The second blockbuster initial public offering after Elon Musk’s SpaceX is about six times oversubscribed, and investors will be watching how the company performs post-IPO amid increasing volatility in the AI and tech sectors, especially in the wake of Huang’s departure from Nvidia.
