Tech heavyweights rose on Monday, rebounding from Friday’s losses and in the midst of Nvidia‘s probe into CEO Jensen Huang.
Chip stocks, including TSMC and ASML, were higher in Asia and Europe on Monday, after Nvidia’s board launched an independent investigation on Sunday.
Nvidia shares were last down over 5% in premarket trading, with other U.S. chip stocks also slightly lower. Intel, Marvell, Qualcomm and Arm were all down over 1% in early premarket trading.
Tech stocks took a hammering last week as investors reassessed the data center build-out after Democrats won control of Congress. But the sector has since rebounded from Thursday’s brutal AI-driven selloff.
Taiwan’s markets led Monday’s rally in Asian markets, with the Taiwan Weighted Index up as much as 6.7%.
The index was powered by gains from heavyweights Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company and Foxconn — formally known as Hon Hai Precision Industry. TSMC was up over 6%, while Hon Hai spiked over 8%.
Other chip stocks in the region were also up, with Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix in South Korea up by 2.7% and 4.77%. Both companies are known suppliers to Nvidia.
Seoul expects contracted deliveries of Nvidia graphics processing units to proceed without disruption despite this controversy, South Korean Second Vice Minister for Science and ICT Ryu Je Myung reportedly said.
Ryu also added that the ministry was closely monitoring developments and discussing prices and schedules with Nvidia Korea.
In Europe, the Stoxx 600 tech index was 1.3% higher in early morning trade, with semiconductor equipment maker ASML up 1.7%. Be Semiconductor and ASM International were also trading higher.
The Nvidia affair
The probe into Nvidia’s CEO has raised concerns about the company’s leadership, analysts told CNBC.
If Huang’s position is “endangered,” then “Nvidia might cut back on supporting other companies, whether it’s in Asia or in the U.S., that might then spread a little bit more into the other semiconductor names,” said Joachim Klement, investment strategist at Panmure Liberum.
Huang, who told Nvidia staff that he had an affair with the woman, apologized, but an Nvidia spokesperson said that Huang was committed to continuing as CEO of Nvidia without interruption.
U.S. intelligence agencies have expressed concerns that the woman, Alice Huang, who is affiliated with a cloud company and an Nvidia customer called Megaspeed, has been passing information to Beijing, according to reports in The New York Times and the Financial Times.
