US Market Weekend Brief (Nov 14 ET): Major Indexes End Four-Week Slide as Nvidia Logs Sixth Straight Weekly Loss, Longest Since 2012

Weekend — Market Closed: US equities were closed on Saturday, November 14, 2026 ET. This edition reviews the full week across asset classes and the AI supply chain. Index and stock data below are Friday, November 13, 2026 regular-session closes; Bitcoin is quoted live as of publication. Equity index futures open at 18:00 ET / 23:00 UTC on Sunday, November 15, and had not yet opened as of this edition's data cutoff.

1. Top Themes of the Week & Expectation Gaps

• A rebound and a split at the same time: indexes up, the leader down hard. All three major indexes closed higher on the week — the S&P 500 up 2.51%, the Nasdaq up 2.27% and the Dow up 2.07% — ending four straight weekly declines, and the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index rose 8.05% for the week, one of the strongest index performances. But the gains were concentrated in the early-week repair rally: on Friday the SOX fell 3.43% and the Nasdaq 0.91%, AMD and Broadcom gave back all of the prior day's gains, and the equal-weight S&P 500 actually rose 0.20%, showing that the pre-weekend slide was concentrated in large-cap technology rather than a broad sell-off.
• Nvidia's governance turmoil became the week's dominant pricing thread. After Jensen Huang resigned on November 12, Nvidia fell 12.75% for the week, its largest single-week drop since April 2025 and its sixth consecutive weekly decline — the longest losing streak since 2012 — with its market value falling below $4 trillion and down more than 30% from its October 6 closing high. In contrast, AMD rose 18.93% and Broadcom 18.16% on the week, as money rotated within the chip sector from the leader to its rivals. The board said on November 13 that it had not yet selected a search firm and had not formally approached any successor candidate; over the weekend a Reuters exclusive reported that Huang was accused of having misled senior executives, and the board's independent investigation and shareholder litigation are still in progress, with the decision point being third-quarter earnings after the close on November 17.
• Split inflation data put rates back in the driver's seat. October PPI rose 0.3% month over month, below the 0.4% consensus, but 6.5% year over year, the largest annual increase 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% consensus. The 10-year Treasury yield rose 29.5 basis points on the week to 5.154%, and the dollar index rose to 103.41. Federal Reserve officials signaled further tightening through the week: Daly said further hikes are "likely" needed, Collins backed gradual hikes while raising her own rate-path expectations, and Jefferson said the inflation trend will be the more important signal for the policy stance.
• Bitcoin broke a key level while haven assets diverged. Bitcoin fell below $70,000 on Friday to close near $68,252, then slid further to about $64,230 on Saturday, its lowest since August 19, for a weekly decline of roughly 10%; spot Bitcoin ETFs recorded a seventh straight day of net outflows. Spot gold steadied after falling to a 13-month low on Thursday, with December gold futures closing Friday at $3,881.70, down 4.74% on the week. Brent crude fell 2.52% on the week to $95.84; shipping through the Strait of Hormuz remains severely disrupted, although Gulf crude exports have recovered to about 80% of pre-war levels.

2. Major Indices & Cross-Asset Tape (Friday Close & Weekly Change)

The S&P 500 fell as low as 7,499.40 intraday on Friday before recovering about 62 points into the close. Bitcoin was quoted near $64,230 before publication on Saturday, down about 5.9% from Friday's close, and traded below $65,000 intraday on Saturday, its lowest since August 19; the weekly Bitcoin change is measured against the November 7 close of about $75,868. The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index closed at 9,390.25 on Friday, November 6, and at 10,146.32 this week.

Sources: index closes per Swingfolio and SMW Markets (Yahoo Finance 16:00 ET closes); Philadelphia Semiconductor Index per the Nasdaq official index page and FRED (ALFRED); VIX per AD HOC NEWS (citing Yahoo Finance); yields, dollar index, gold futures and oil per The Trade Signal; Friday Bitcoin close per Swingfolio, Saturday live quote per Finnhub (Binance BTC/USDT).

3. Market Sentiment, Breadth & Sector Rotation

• The VIX fell back into neutral territory but remains above October levels. The VIX closed Friday at 19.30, up 3.21%, still inside the 15–20 neutral band and below the 20–30 cautious band; it touched 20.92 intraday, briefly moving above 20. For the week the VIX fell 24.73% from 25.64 the prior Friday, consistent with the rebound in equities. Ahead of the December 8–9 FOMC meeting, the policy path remains the main source of volatility.
• Friday breadth weakened, but the decline did not spread across the whole market. Advancing issues numbered 2,462 against 3,047 decliners; within the S&P 500, 270 stocks rose and 186 fell; market-wide new highs numbered 303 against 1,055 new lows. Nvidia traded 361 million shares, the most active stock of the day; total market volume relative to its average is not available from a reliable source.
• Seven of eleven sectors rose on Friday, led by defensives. On an S&P 500 sector ETF basis: consumer staples rose 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 fell 0.21%, industrials 0.39%, consumer discretionary 0.40% and technology 2.01%, the worst performer. Technology's decline was directly tied to the drag from chip stocks, while most other sectors closed higher, indicating rotation within the market rather than a broad exit. No reliable public source was available for full-week sector performance, so this edition does not estimate it.
• The equal-weight index outperformed the cap-weighted index. The equal-weight S&P 500 rose 0.20% on Friday, outperforming the index by about 60 basis points, and also outperformed over the full week, confirming that this week's rebound was broader than Friday's headline declines suggest.

4. Magnificent 7 & AI / Memory Supply Chain (Friday Close & Weekly Change)

Magnificent 7

AI Compute, Chip Equipment & Memory Chain

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

The Korea KOSPI closed Friday at 5,290.53, down 0.98%, up 4.56% on the week; the KOSDAQ rose 0.45% to 699.66. Foreign investors were net sellers of about KRW 550.5 billion in KOSPI shares on the day. Both memory makers rose 3%–4% in the morning before turning lower in the afternoon on expectations of weakness in US chip stocks. SK Hynix's US ADR (SKHY) closed at $131.79, down 4.30%, in the same direction as the Korean shares but with a different magnitude given the time-zone and trading-session differences. The Korean quotes above are not mixed into the US dollar tables.

Stock Notes

• Nvidia (NVDA, -12.75% for the week): Down for a second straight session to $162.85, with an intraday low of $158.39, and its market value below $4 trillion — a cumulative 12.75% decline from the November 6 close. The board told CNBC it had not yet selected a search firm for a permanent CEO and had not formally approached any candidate, directly responding to a Financial Times report that the board had approached Arm CEO Rene Haas. Huang resigned on November 12, and CFO Colette Kress is serving as interim CEO. The real decision point remains third-quarter earnings after the close on November 17.
• AMD (+18.93% for the week), Broadcom (+18.16%): The two rivals that surged the prior day on Nvidia's leadership vacuum gave back all of those gains on Friday, with AMD closing at $534.06 and Broadcom at $347.01; there was no company-specific public catalyst for either, with the move driven by a reversal of intra-sector rotation. For the full week, the two were still the largest gainers among heavyweight chip stocks.
• Micron (+12.80% for the week), SanDisk (~+5.97%), Western Digital (-5.00% Friday), Seagate (-3.09% Friday): The memory chain 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, with post-split trading starting November 20.
• Cisco (-6.24% Friday), CBRS (+11.22% Friday): Cisco's fiscal Q1 2027 revenue of $18.5 billion rose 24% year over year, a record, but adjusted gross margin narrowed from 65.5% to 63.7% and second-quarter revenue guidance of $18.0–$18.2 billion came in below the just-reported quarter, sending the stock to $95.64. CBRS reported third-quarter revenue of $210.8 million, up 55% year over year, a record, raised its full-year 2026 guidance and named Microsoft as a customer, lifting the stock to $108.72.
• Dell (-7.18% Friday), Super Micro (-0.46% Friday): Dell closed at $344.53 on reports tracing 22 servers carrying restricted Nvidia H800 chips to a data center in Shanghai. Super Micro closed at $26.87, narrowing the prior day's 11.30% drop on reports of a Justice Department investigation.
• Tesla (+8.93% for the week), SpaceX (-0.59% Friday): Bloomberg, citing people familiar with the matter, reported the two companies are in merger talks that could be announced as early as December, with a combined market value of about $3.5 trillion; neither company has commented and no final agreement has been reached. ⚠ Single-source / Unconfirmed Tesla closed at $390.22 and SpaceX at $139.11. Tesla announced personal Cybercab orders on Friday evening (see Section 6).
• Meta (+5.17% for the week), Apple (+4.06%), Microsoft (-1.27%): Meta led the Magnificent 7 with no clear public catalyst; Microsoft rose after confirming the root cause of the global Microsoft 365 outage, having traded as low as $513.82 intraday; the outage was formally closed on Saturday (see Section 6).
• Modine (+27.86% Friday): Bloomberg reported Samsung Electronics is in talks to acquire the data-center cooling equipment maker, lifting the stock to $135.66; Samsung said it could not confirm the report. ⚠ Single-source / Unconfirmed
• Nebius (-9.92% Friday), CoreWeave (-6.13% Friday): Reports that Microsoft is reviewing its Neocloud contracts weighed on the segment; the report is not yet confirmed. Nebius closed at $115.88 and CoreWeave at $53.13.

5. Macro, Fed & Earnings Drivers

• October PPI came in below consensus 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% consensus 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%, indicating the market focused more on the stickiness of year-over-year inflation than on the modest month-over-month cooling.
• October CPI also beat consensus, with no official year-over-year reading. October CPI rose 0.4% month over month overall (consensus +0.3%) and 0.3% for core (consensus +0.2%), the third straight month of +0.3% core. There is no official year-over-year reading because no data was collected in October 2025 during the federal government shutdown; unofficial estimates of about +3.9% overall and +2.7% core must be clearly distinguished from official figures and must not be presented as official consensus.
• Fed officials kept signaling further tightening, with the internal split now public. San Francisco Fed President Mary Daly said on Friday that the Fed "likely" still needs to raise rates, with services inflation moving in the wrong direction and producers running out of room to absorb costs — noticeably firmer language than the day before. Boston Fed President Susan Collins said on Saturday that she supports a steady, gradual pace of small hikes and sees no reason to move faster, while acknowledging that the rate path over the next year may be higher than she envisaged a few months ago; Collins has no vote at FOMC meetings in 2026. Fed Vice Chair Philip Jefferson said on Friday evening that, with growth and the labor market stabilizing, the inflation trend will be the more important signal for the policy stance. CME FedWatch puts the probability of a 25-basis-point hike at the December 8–9 FOMC meeting at about 89%, and a 50-basis-point hike at about 11%. The next FOMC meeting is December 8–9, with the decision due at 14:00 ET / 19:00 UTC on December 9; November CPI is due December 10 and October PCE on November 25.
• The Fed's Financial Stability Report named AI as the top risk. The Fed's semiannual Financial Stability Report, published November 13, showed that about 87% of the 23 market participants surveyed by the New York Fed in September–October named artificial intelligence as a notable risk to the financial system, up from 50% in the May survey; respondents cited elevated AI-related valuations, the risk of a broad market pullback if AI earnings disappoint, cyberattack risk and complex AI-related financing structures. The report also disclosed that debt issuance tied to advanced compute infrastructure reached $680 billion in the first ten months of 2026, about five times the roughly $130 billion issued in all of 2023, and that not-yet-started AI infrastructure debt, guarantees and leases could exceed $3 trillion. The report states explicitly that the survey reflects respondents' views, not the Fed's own judgment, and the survey was completed before the Nvidia leadership turmoil.
• Late earnings season still delivered split signals. Cisco and CBRS both beat expectations and raised guidance, but the market priced them in opposite directions: Cisco fell 6.24% on margin compression and next-quarter guidance below the just-reported quarter, while CBRS rose 11.22% on record revenue and naming Microsoft as a customer. As of publication, more than 88% of S&P 500 companies had reported, with about 84% beating earnings estimates, above the five-year average of 78%.

6. Weekend Developments (Through Publication)

1. Reuters exclusive: Huang accused of misleading Nvidia executives and downplaying ties to Alice Huang. ⚠ Single-source / Unconfirmed The Reuters report was published at 19:26 ET / 00:26 UTC on November 13–14. Two people familiar with the matter confirmed to Reuters, which reviewed internal messages, that in two October messages Huang told the general counsel and the chief marketing officer that his dealings with Alice Huang were standard business with a client; after media inquiries in autumn 2025 drew senior management's attention, Huang likewise said the dealings were appropriate and did not mention an affair. The board hired Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz on November 10 to run an independent investigation, and shareholders have sued Nvidia and Huang, alleging they misled investors about the episode. Nvidia and Huang's representatives declined to comment. Read-through: whether the general counsel and chief marketing officer were misled has become a central question for the board's independent investigation and the shareholder litigation, and the governance uncertainty bears directly on the credibility of the November 17 earnings call. Source: Reuters (via WDSM 710).
2. Musk says Nvidia will lose critical deals without Huang. Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk said on X at 09:49 ET / 14:49 UTC on Saturday that Nvidia will lose "critical" deals without the departed Huang, praising Huang's supply-chain execution as "exceptional" and saying many deals were "handshake deals with Jensen himself, not written contracts." Musk named no specific deals, customers or amounts, and Reuters disclosed no further details. Read-through: if some of Nvidia's large customer commitments are indeed personal, non-written understandings with Huang, whether the successor can carry them over will directly affect Nvidia accelerator shipment cadence and order visibility, and in turn upstream high-bandwidth memory and memory makers; no Nvidia customer has publicly announced any change to purchasing plans. Source: Reuters (via 93-5 The Lloyd).
3. Two large shareholders wrote to Nvidia's board, asking it to slow the CEO search. Altimeter Capital and Atreides Management, which together hold about $2.1 billion of Nvidia stock, wrote jointly to the board on November 13, asking it to proceed with a slow, deliberate succession process, not to rush a permanent appointment before all facts are known, and to keep open the possibility of founder Huang returning; the letter does not dispute the reports about Huang's conduct and does not demand immediate reinstatement. Read-through: a slower succession means no permanent appointment is likely before the board's independent investigation concludes, so the governance vacuum will extend beyond the November 17 earnings report. Source: CNBC (via TradingView).
4. HSBC cut Nvidia to Hold and slashed its price target to $170. HSBC cut Nvidia from Buy to Hold and its price target from $365 to $170 on November 13 at 10:59 ET / 15:59 UTC, a cut of about 53%; the new target sits only about 2.3% above the November 12 close. The report's quantified bear case: about 11% of Nvidia's revenue over the past six quarters came from markets outside the US and Taiwan that could face tighter export controls; if that fiscal 2028 revenue were lost entirely, earnings per share would fall 13% from HSBC's base case of $15.65 to $13.57, versus a market consensus of about $15.77. Another large downgrade this week: Baird cut its rating to Neutral from Outperform on November 11 and its target to $200 from $500; Bernstein cut to Market Perform from Outperform and its target to $200 from $400.
5. Wall Street Journal investigation: Nvidia funded startups to absorb excess chips. ⚠ Single-source / Unconfirmed A Wall Street Journal investigation published November 13 reported that former CEO Huang used the balance sheet to fund AI startups and data-center operators buying Nvidia chips, to absorb excess silicon and memory pre-purchased from TSMC rather than cutting prices; the 10-Q shows total commitments and guarantees of about $530 billion, up sharply from about $184 billion the prior quarter, including about $279 billion in supply and capacity purchase obligations and a maximum guarantee exposure of about $108.5 billion. Nvidia has long denied "circular financing" claims, and the motives and internal statements described in the report are not yet confirmed. Read-through: if the report is accurate, the quality of Nvidia's demand and the scale of its contingent liabilities will be central questions on the November 17 earnings call, with direct implications for the sustainability of the AI compute financing chain. Source: Wall Street Journal (via Wccftech).
6. Trump may hold off on Iran strikes; trilateral summit set for November 19. Reuters reported at 06:03 ET / 11:03 UTC on November 14, citing three people familiar with the matter, that Trump recently told senior advisers he may hold off on new strikes against Iran if Iran or Yemen's Houthis take no new provocative action; Trump has not made a final decision. ⚠ Single-source / Unconfirmed The White House confirmed the same day that Trump, Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin will hold a trilateral meeting on November 19 during the APEC summit in Shenzhen, focused on nuclear arms reduction and the US–Israel war with Iran; it would be the first trilateral meeting of the three leaders, but US officials have said explicitly that no agreement is expected. The UK Maritime Trade Operations center's latest weekly assessment confirmed at least seven tanker attacks in and around the Strait of Hormuz in the week to November 11, with transit still about 65% below pre-war levels; International Energy Agency data show Gulf crude exports have recovered to about 82% of pre-war levels, while refined products and LPG exports remain at only about half. Sources: Reuters (via WNFL), Associated Press (via Military.com).
7. Anthropic IPO order book turned away China and Hong Kong institutional orders. ⚠ Single-source / Unconfirmed Bloomberg reported at 14:55 ET / 19:55 UTC on November 13, citing people familiar with the matter, that banks underwriting Anthropic's IPO have declined to accept some institutional orders from mainland China and Hong Kong, or told them their allocation chances are minimal, partly because of US International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR); Anthropic declined to comment. Terms and timetable are unchanged: 825 million shares at $70–$78, up to about $64.4 billion in public proceeds and a fully diluted valuation of up to about $1.4 trillion, plus about $26 billion in concurrent private placements, for up to about $90.4 billion in total; pricing is expected November 18 and the Nasdaq listing (ticker ANT) on November 19; the order book is about six times oversubscribed. Read-through: arms-export controls are now materially shaping the order book of a mega AI IPO for the first time, showing that US technology controls on China are extending from chip and equipment exports into primary-market capital access. Source: Bloomberg (via Advisor Perspectives).
8. Former OpenAI engineer says forensic analysis ties Chinese frontier models to restricted Nvidia Blackwell chips. ⚠ Single-source / Unconfirmed The Register reported at 16:16 ET / 21:16 UTC on November 13 that former OpenAI engineer Will Depp published a forensic analysis saying six Chinese frontier AI models, including DeepSeek-V4-Pro, Kimi K3 and MiniMax-M3, carry weight-initialization patterns matching export-controlled Nvidia Blackwell GPUs; another researcher independently reproduced the method and reached the same conclusion. The report itself states the conclusion is "not a finding that any law was violated" and cannot prove where the chips are located, who owns them or how they were obtained; the US Commerce Department, Nvidia and the Chinese labs involved have not responded to the report. Read-through: if the forensic method holds up, weight-initialization fingerprints could give regulators and Congress a verification path independent of shipping and customs data, potentially accelerating pending bills such as the AI Oversight Act and pushing the US to further restrict remote compute-rental channels. Source: The Register.
9. OpenAI disbanded its independent robotics team as general models take over robot control. Fortune reported exclusively at 12:05 ET / 17:05 UTC on November 13, confirmed by an OpenAI spokesperson, that OpenAI has disbanded its independent robotics team, moving staff into the main research team and the Applied organization; the company says general frontier models such as GPT-6 Astra can now directly control robots, so robots no longer need a dedicated model team; the goal of a public humanoid robot demonstration in 2027 is unchanged. The company's cited evidence is an Nvidia study in which a GPT-6 Astra-driven agent scored 74.8% on a simulated manipulation benchmark, above the 51.0% of the best specialized robotics model — but this is a simulation benchmark, not a physical-robot test, the method details are not public, and whether it replicates on real hardware remains unverified. Source: Fortune.
10. Tesla opened personal Cybercab orders; SpaceX caught a Starship upper stage with the tower for the first time. Tesla's official Robotaxi account announced at 18:27 ET / 23:27 UTC on November 13 that it is inviting selected customers to order the steering-wheel-free Cybercab for personal use at $29,990 before tax, with a $299-per-month self-driving subscription required to operate it, and deliveries expected in December in Austin, Texas; the launch is limited to invited customers. Regulation remains the main uncertainty: the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration caps deployment of vehicles that do not meet federal safety standards at 2,500 per year, and the agency has not yet ruled on Cybercab certification. SpaceX's Starship Flight 15 upper stage, Ship 42, flew in orbit for about 22.5 hours and 14 orbits before being caught by the launch tower's arms at about 16:20 ET / 21:20 UTC on November 14 at Starbase, Texas, the first tower catch of an orbital spacecraft; the Super Heavy booster, Booster 22, aborted its recovery attempt over a guidance, navigation and control issue and exploded before splashdown in the Gulf of Mexico. Sources: Tesla official Robotaxi account (X), SpaceX official account (X).
11. Microsoft 365 outage formally ended; FAA nationwide ground stop lifted. Microsoft's public service health page confirmed at 03:40 ET / 08:40 UTC on November 14 that all products were operating normally, formally closing the global Microsoft 365 outage that lasted about 30 hours; Microsoft has confirmed the root cause was a technical issue introduced by an earlier network capacity upgrade, unrelated to a cyberattack or AI agents, and a full post-incident report has not yet been published. The FAA's nationwide ground stop, issued on the afternoon of November 13 over a temporary telecommunications outage, was lifted at 20:38 ET / 01:38 UTC on November 13–14 after lasting about four hours, with more than 10,000 delays and 5,000 cancellations across the US that day; it was the second nationwide stop since September 11, 2001, and the specific technical root cause has not yet been disclosed and remains under investigation.

7. Next-Week Catalyst Slate

Data notes: Index and stock closes are regular-session closes (16:00 ET); Bitcoin trades around the clock and is quoted as a pre-publication snapshot; Korean market quotes are in Korean won on the Korean trading day; after-hours moves are post-close trading and are not mixed with regular-session closes. Macro consensus figures are market consensus, with actuals as officially published. Oil and gold quotes are closing snapshots, with settlement prices subject to final exchange publication. October CPI has no official year-over-year reading because no data was collected in October 2025 during the federal government shutdown; unofficial estimates of about +3.9% overall and +2.7% core must be clearly distinguished from official figures. Equity index futures open at 18:00 ET / 23:00 UTC on Sunday, November 15, and had not yet opened as of this edition's data cutoff.

Information only, not investment advice.