Broadcom beats Nvidia by record margin after Huang exit

Broadcom ↘ 4.76% beat Nvidia ↘ 2.01% by more in the week ended Nov. 13 than in any other week since Broadcom went public in 2009. Jensen Huang's sudden departure from Nvidia pushed investors toward the chipmaker's rivals. Broadcom shares closed Friday up 18.2% from a week earlier, even after a 4.8% drop that day, Opening Bell Daily reported. Nvidia fell 2% on Friday, leaving it down 13% for the week. That was its worst weekly decline since the April 2025 tariff selloff and its sixth straight losing week, the longest streak since 2012, according to Bloomberg via The Economic Times.economictimes.indiatimes.com+1

As of Friday afternoon, the ratio of Broadcom's share price to Nvidia's had jumped 35.4% for the week. That beat the previous record of nearly 33%, set in the week ended Dec. 13, 2024, after a Broadcom earnings report, Benzinga reported.benzinga.com

Leadership crisis at Nvidia

On Thursday, Nov. 12, Nvidia said Huang had resigned as president, CEO and director, effective immediately. Chief Financial Officer Colette Kress became interim CEO, Yahoo Finance reported. His exit followed his admission of an affair with a woman suspected of spying for China, plus a reported affair with an employee. Nvidia lost more than $570 billion in market value during the week, and at least 13 analysts have downgraded the stock this month, according to Bloomberg. On Thursday the stock fell as much as 14% at the open, then recovered to close down 4.3%, Reuters noted.rmb.reuters.com+2

Rivals rally, Nvidia partners slide

CNBC reported that investors bid up Advanced Micro Devices ↘ 8.75% and Broadcom, while selling neocloud CoreWeave ↘ 6.13% and server maker Dell Technologies ↘ 7.18%. Both chipmakers were up about 17% for the week even after Friday's pullback. AMD could pick up share in graphics processors (GPUs), and Broadcom could gain from demand for custom AI chips. "The biggest thing that Nvidia now has to try to reestablish is trust. Once you lose the customer's trust, it is going to benefit competitors," Jay Woods of Freedom Capital Markets told CNBC.cnbc.com

Wedbush analyst Matthew Bryson said "custom ASICs are where we believe companies want to turn," a view that favors Broadcom, according to CNBC. Not everyone agreed. Rothschild & Co. downgraded Broadcom to neutral on Friday, citing its reliance on OpenAI and Anthropic, tighter AI financing, and Google's push to design more chips in-house. Dell fell 7% on Friday because most of its AI server revenue comes from Nvidia systems. CoreWeave, which uses only Nvidia GPUs and has Nvidia as a backer, faces pressure if Nvidia cuts back on chip financing.cnbc.com

The next test is Tuesday, Nov. 17, when Nvidia reports third-quarter results, its first earnings report under Kress as interim CEO, CNBC noted.cnbc.com