Jensen Huang has gotten himself into some trouble.
Nvidia’s board is investigating his relationship with an alleged Chinese spy, and three House committee chairmen have asked him to brief Congress behind closed doors.
The stock is back to where it stalled on its first run-up in July 2025, and decisions are going to have to be made down here.
Everybody’s going to spend this week arguing about whether Jensen survives. I think that’s the wrong question.
And the chip stock I’m looking at today isn’t Nvidia. It’s the one coming off the worst month in its history.
Watch The Bench, Not The Headlines
When a founder-CEO gets wrapped up in something like this, it causes problems for the company. But what their bench looks like is what matters.
Think about how Steve Jobs handed things off to Tim Cook. That worked fine for Apple’s stock. So the questions I’d be asking are about Nvidia’s CFO, its chief operating officer and everyone else who runs the place day to day.
I had our Wall Street to K Street expert, Frank Gregory, on the show this morning, and he flagged the risk most people aren’t pricing in. “No company wants Congress doing a proctology exam on it,” Frank said. There are no criminal charges, but under the Economic Espionage Act, a company can be fined the greater of $10 million or three times the value of the trade secrets involved.
Why I’m Looking At Intel
Every Monday on the Ticker Highlight Show, our traders each pick one stock to like. Mine this week is Intel.
As I put it on the show this morning, “I think it might be time to look at Intel, especially given what’s just happened with Nvidia. Might be time to finally step in and buy.”
Intel has been a disaster lately. It lost 45% in October, its worst month on record, including a 29% drop on Oct. 30 alone after weak fourth-quarter guidance. The stock hit $140.94 in June. It closed Friday at $56.28.
Two things have my attention, though. On Nov. 2, CEO Lip-Bu Tan bought about $9.7 million of Intel stock through his family trust, at roughly $64.71 a share. At Friday’s close, he’s already down on that buy.
And Washington owns about 10% of Intel, through the stake the Trump administration took last year.
The bear case is real. Intel’s guidance was weak, and PC sales are forecast to keep shrinking through 2027. This stock has burned a lot of people who tried to call the bottom, so if you step in, don’t step in with your whole account.
Trading The Next Two Months
This is the kind of headline-driven market where opportunities come fast, and today I executed my first trade for Cycle 11.
This is the 11th midterm cycle, where we expect things to trade in a specific pattern and produce some specific opportunities. Between now and when the new Congress takes over in January, we’re going to be trading every one of them, several trades a week.
Your only option,
Mark Sebastian
P.S. On Friday, I opened a special situations trade in Apple. Today, I closed it for a near 40% win, in one day. Join us for the next one here.