US Market Close Brief (Nov 13 ET): Chip Slide Drags Nasdaq -0.91% as October PPI Posts Biggest Annual Gain in Four Years

1. Market Regime & Key Takeaways

• Chip stocks gave back the post-Huang-resignation rotation rally, with losses concentrated in the largest technology names. The PHLX Semiconductor Index fell 3.43%, AMD dropped 8.75% and Broadcom fell 4.76%, essentially erasing the prior day's gains of more than 5%; Nvidia fell another 2.01% and its market value slipped below $4 trillion. The equal-weight S&P 500 rose 0.20% instead, showing the day's decline was concentrated in large-cap technology rather than a broad market sell-off.
• PPI sent a split signal — cooler month over month, hotter year over year — and rates reasserted themselves as a headwind. October PPI rose 0.3% month over month, below the 0.4% forecast, but increased 6.5% year over year, the largest annual gain since November 2022; core PPI excluding food, energy and trade services rose 0.5% month over month for a second straight month, above the 0.3% forecast. The 10-year Treasury yield rose 5.1 basis points to 5.154%, the 30-year yield reached 5.481% and the dollar index rose to 103.41.
• Defensive rotation and diverging havens. Consumer staples led seven of the eleven sectors that closed higher, while technology fell 2.01% to the bottom of the table; bitcoin broke below $70,000 to $68,252, down 4.49%; spot gold steadied after Thursday's slide to a 13-month low, with December gold futures settling at $3,881.70. For the week, the three major indexes still closed higher: the S&P gained 2.51%, the Nasdaq 2.27% and the Dow 2.07%.

2. Major Indices & Cross-Asset Tape

The S&P 500 gained 2.51% for the week (last Friday's close: 7,376.86), ending a four-week losing streak; the Nasdaq rose 2.27% and the Dow 2.07% for the week. Intraday, the S&P 500 fell as low as 7,499.40 before recovering about 62 points into the close. Spot gold steadied after Thursday's 2.96% drop, reaching an intraday high of about $3,918; bitcoin has fallen steadily since November 11 and is now below the $70,000 round number.

Sources: index closes per Swingfolio and SMW Markets (Yahoo Finance 4:00 PM ET closes); PHLX Semiconductor Index per Nasdaq's official index page; VIX per AD HOC NEWS (citing Yahoo Finance); yields, dollar index, gold futures and crude per The Trade Signal; bitcoin per Swingfolio.

3. Breadth, Positioning & Sector Rotation

• The VIX remains in neutral territory, but its absolute level keeps rising. The VIX closed at 19.30, up 3.21%, still inside the 15–20 neutral band and short of the 20–30 caution band; it touched 20.92 intraday, briefly crossing 20. With the December 8–9 FOMC meeting ahead, the policy path remains the main source of volatility.
• Breadth weakened, but the decline did not spread across the whole market. Advancers numbered 2,462 against 3,047 decliners (The Trade Signal); within the S&P 500, 270 stocks rose and 186 fell; across the US market, 303 stocks hit new 52-week highs and 1,055 hit new lows. Nvidia was the most active name with 361 million shares traded; no reliable data on total market volume relative to its average.
• Seven of eleven sectors rose, led by defensives. By SPDR sector ETF: consumer staples +1.42%, communication services +1.05%, energy +0.98%, financials +0.81%, health care +0.54%, utilities +0.52% and real estate +0.02%; materials -0.21%, industrials -0.39%, consumer discretionary -0.40% and technology -2.01% at the bottom. Technology's drop tracks the chip sell-off directly, while most other sectors closed higher, pointing to rotation within equities rather than a broad exit.

4. Magnificent 7 & AI / Memory Supply Chain

Magnificent 7

AI Compute, Chip Equipment & Memory Chain

Korea Memory Makers — Special Tracking (Korea trading day 2026-11-13)

The KOSPI closed at 5,290.53, down 0.98%, after rising more than 2% intraday to 5,504.44 and giving back all of its gains in the afternoon as foreign investors turned net sellers; the KOSDAQ rose 0.45% to 699.66. Foreign investors net sold about ₩550.5 billion of KOSPI shares. Both memory makers rose 3%–4% in the morning before turning lower in the afternoon on the weaker US chip outlook. SK Hynix's US ADR (SKHY) closed at $131.79, down 4.30%, in the same direction as the Seoul shares, with the size of the move differing because of time-zone and trading-session differences. The Korean quotes above are not mixed into the US dollar tables.

Stock Depth

• Nvidia (NVDA, -2.01%): Down for a second straight session to $162.85, with an intraday low of $158.39, and its market value fell below $4 trillion; it is down 12.75% from its November 6 close. The board told CNBC that it has not yet selected a search firm for a permanent CEO and has not formally approached any candidate, responding directly to a Financial Times report that the board had approached Arm CEO Rene Haas. Jensen Huang resigned on November 12, and CFO Colette Kress is interim CEO. The real test remains Tuesday's third-quarter results, due after the close on November 17.
• AMD (-8.75%), Broadcom (-4.76%): The two rivals that rallied the prior day on Nvidia's leadership vacuum gave back all of those gains, closing at $534.06 and $347.01 respectively; there was no company-specific public catalyst, with the move driven by a reversal of intra-sector rotation. For the week, AMD still gained 18.93% and Broadcom 18.16%.
• Micron (-2.52%), SanDisk (-5.59%), Western Digital (-5.00%), Seagate (-3.09%): Memory names fell with the AI complex, with no company-specific public catalyst. SanDisk's 8-for-1 split timetable is unchanged: new shares will be issued after the close on November 19 and begin trading on a split-adjusted basis on November 20.
• Cisco (-6.24%), Cerebras (+11.22%): Cisco's fiscal 2027 first-quarter revenue of $18.5 billion rose 24% year over year to a record, but adjusted gross margin narrowed to 63.7% from 65.5% and second-quarter revenue guidance of $18.0–18.2 billion came in below the quarter just reported, sending the stock to $95.64. Cerebras posted record third-quarter revenue of $210.8 million, up 55% year over year, raised its 2026 outlook and named Microsoft as a customer, closing at $108.72.
• Dell (-7.18%), Super Micro (-0.46%): Dell closed at $344.53, pressured by the export-control enforcement thread: reports traced 22 Dell servers carrying restricted Nvidia H800 chips to a data center in Shanghai. Super Micro closed at $26.87, after falling 11.30% the prior day on the DOJ probe reports, with the day's decline narrowing.
• Tesla (-1.82%), SpaceX (-0.59%): Bloomberg, citing people familiar with the matter, reported the two companies are in merger talks, with an announcement possible as early as December and a combined market value of about $3.5 trillion; neither company commented and no final agreement has been reached. ⚠ Single-source / Unconfirmed Tesla closed at $390.22 and SpaceX at $139.11.
• Meta (+2.90%), Apple (+0.39%), Microsoft (+0.17%): Meta led the Magnificent 7 higher with no clear public catalyst; Microsoft closed higher after confirming the root cause of the Microsoft 365 outage, after falling as low as $513.82 intraday.
• Modine (+27.86%): Bloomberg reported Samsung Electronics is in talks to acquire the data-center cooling equipment maker; Samsung said it could not confirm the report. ⚠ Single-source / Unconfirmed Modine closed at $135.66.
• Nebius (-9.92%), CoreWeave (-6.13%): Reports that Microsoft is reviewing its neocloud contracts pressured the neocloud group; the reports are not yet confirmed. Nebius closed at $115.88 and CoreWeave at $53.13.

5. Macro, Fed & Earnings Drivers

• October PPI came in below forecast month over month, but posted the largest annual gain in nearly four years. Final-demand PPI rose 0.3% month over month (consensus +0.4%; September revised up to +1.4%) and 6.5% year over year (consensus +6.6%), the largest annual increase since November 2022; core PPI excluding food and energy rose 0.3% month over month, in line with consensus and below September's +0.8%; core PPI excluding food, energy and trade services rose 0.5% month over month, above the 0.3% forecast for a second straight month, and 4.9% year over year. By component, goods prices rose 10.2% year over year and intermediate processed goods 14.6%. After the release, the 10-year Treasury yield still rose to 5.154%, suggesting the market is weighting the stickiness of year-over-year inflation more than the small month-over-month undershoot.
• Fed officials kept signalling further tightening. San Francisco Fed President Mary Daly and Boston Fed President Susan Collins both said further tightening would still be needed. CME FedWatch puts a December 8–9 FOMC hike of 25 basis points at about 89% and of 50 basis points at about 11%. The next FOMC meeting is December 8–9, with the decision due December 9 at 14:00 ET / 19:00 UTC; November CPI is due December 10 and October PCE on November 25.
• Late earnings season still delivered split signals. Cisco and Cerebras both beat and raised guidance, but the market priced them in opposite directions: Cisco fell 6.24% on margin compression and a next-quarter guide below the quarter just reported, while Cerebras rose 11.22% on record revenue and naming Microsoft as a customer. More than 88% of S&P 500 companies have now reported, with about 84% beating EPS estimates, above the five-year average of 78%.

6. Tech & AI Infrastructure Wire

1. Nvidia's board denies formally approaching any successor candidate, cooling the speculation. ⚠ Single-source / Unconfirmed The board told CNBC on November 13 at 14:18 ET / 19:18 UTC that it is selecting a search firm for the CEO role, has not formally approached any candidate, and that any speculation about specific names is premature. Earlier the same day, Reuters, citing the Financial Times, reported the board had approached Arm CEO Rene Haas, one of several candidates, with no guarantee of nomination or acceptance; Reuters said it could not independently verify the report and Arm declined to comment. Read-through: the unresolved succession bears directly on Nvidia's strategic continuity — Huang led its China export-policy lobbying and large compute deals — and with no certainty available from the successor's identity in the near term, the governance vacuum will keep driving AI chip sentiment, with Tuesday's results after the close the next test. Sources: CNBC, Reuters (via WNFL).
2. Export-control enforcement tightens: Reuters exclusive says more than $3.2 billion of Chinese AI projects still rely on restricted Nvidia chips, as Bessent publicly faults Commerce. ⚠ Single-source / Unconfirmed After reviewing more than 150 Chinese public procurement and construction documents, Reuters found Chinese compute projects worth more than ¥23 billion (about $3.2 billion) still being built around restricted H100, H200 and H800 chips; the figure covers buildings, power systems and other infrastructure, not chip purchases alone; China's Commerce Ministry and Nvidia did not respond to requests for comment. The same day, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said in a CNBC interview that Commerce has been slow to add Singapore cloud provider Megaspeed — at the centre of chip-smuggling allegations — to the Entity List, saying Treasury, Defense, State and the US Trade Representative had agreed months ago and the decision rests with Commerce; Commerce did not immediately respond. Separate reports traced 22 Dell servers carrying restricted H800 chips to a data center in Shanghai, and Dell fell 7.18%. Read-through: the enforcement gap is shifting from who buys chips to who ultimately uses the compute; if Commerce adds Megaspeed, it would effectively cut off its compliant access to advanced AI chips and force suppliers to strengthen customer due diligence; if controls tighten further, Chinese demand may shift faster to domestic accelerators, changing how HBM capacity is allocated. Sources: Reuters (via Y'all 106.7), Reuters (Bessent remarks).
3. DOJ reported to be running an antitrust probe of Nvidia and smuggling probes of Super Micro and Megaspeed. ⚠ Single-source / Unconfirmed Semafor, citing two government officials, reported the Justice Department is pursuing three inquiries: one into Nvidia's business conduct, focused on antitrust, and two others into Megaspeed and Super Micro, examining whether entities linked to Alice Huang helped smuggle Super Micro products to China; the report said there is no indication prosecutors intend to bring criminal charges against Nvidia or Huang. Bloomberg, citing people familiar with the matter, reported the Manhattan US Attorney's office is investigating whether entities linked to Alice Huang helped smuggle Super Micro products to China; Huang himself is not a target of US law-enforcement investigations. Nvidia and the Justice Department did not comment; Super Micro denied ever selling to Megaspeed and said it is cooperating fully. Background: on March 19, 2026, federal prosecutors charged three people, including a Super Micro co-founder, with conspiring to move servers carrying Nvidia H200 and B200 chips to China through front companies in Southeast Asia, involving about $2.5 billion. Read-through: regulatory pressure has moved from congressional hearings into Justice Department enforcement; if the smuggling probes widen, they would directly tighten export-compliance review for AI servers and accelerators and could push cloud vendors and neoclouds to raise procurement and compliance bars. Source: Semafor (via Seeking Alpha).
4. Samsung is in talks to acquire data-center cooling supplier Modine; shares jumped 27.86%. ⚠ Single-source / Unconfirmed Bloomberg reported Samsung Electronics is in talks to acquire Modine; Samsung said it could not confirm the report and Modine did not comment. Modine closed at $135.66 after rising about 38% premarket. Read-through: data-center cooling has become a key bottleneck in AI infrastructure, and liquid-cooling and cooling-system suppliers are entering large hardware vendors' acquisition sights; this is only a report of talks, with no final agreement, so the shares can swing sharply on the next headline. Source: SMW Markets (citing the Bloomberg report).
5. Microsoft confirms the Microsoft 365 outage stemmed from a network capacity upgrade, with the underlying issue fixed; Microsoft is reported to be reviewing neocloud contracts. Microsoft said the global Microsoft 365 outage, which lasted nearly 24 hours, was caused by an issue introduced by an earlier network capacity upgrade that surfaced after a more recent network change, and was unrelated to a cyberattack or an AI agent; the underlying issue has been addressed and services are being restored broadly. Affected services included Exchange Online, Outlook, Teams, SharePoint Online and Microsoft 365 Copilot; Outlook reports on Downdetector peaked at about 138,058, across 74 countries and regions; as of 09:17 ET / 14:17 UTC on November 13, the mail queue had shrunk sharply toward normal levels and Microsoft extended the mail timeout window to 48 hours. As of publication, service-health incidents EX1550543 and MO1550821 remain open, and Microsoft has promised a full post-incident report. ⚠ Single-source / Unconfirmed Separately, reports said Microsoft is reviewing its neocloud contracts, sending Nebius down 9.92% and CoreWeave down 6.13%; those reports are not yet confirmed. Read-through: attributing the cause to internal change management rather than an attack removes the security tail risk, but exposes the transmission chain between capacity upgrades and network changes; if the neocloud contract review is real, it would directly hit the revenue visibility of compute lessors dependent on Microsoft orders. Sources: MacRumors, Swingfolio.

7. Next-Session Catalyst Slate

Data notes: Index and stock closes are regular-session closes (16:00 ET); bitcoin trades 24 hours and the quote is a snapshot taken before publication; Korean market quotes are in won at the Korea trading-day close; after-hours moves are post-close trading and are not mixed with regular-session closes. Macro expectations are market consensus; actuals are as officially published. Crude and gold futures quotes are closing snapshots; settlement prices are as finally published by the exchanges. October CPI has no official year-over-year reading because the October 2025 federal government shutdown meant no data was collected that month; unofficial estimates of about +3.9% headline / +2.7% core must be kept distinct from officially published values.

Information only, not investment advice.

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