Nvidia stock (NVDA) heads into November 10, 2026 carrying a new kind of risk: not a supply-chain problem or an export ban, but its founder. After the board opened an independent investigation into CEO Jensen Huang‘s relationship with a Megaspeed executive whom U.S. officials reportedly believe worked for Beijing, the shares fell about 5.4% to roughly $176.5 on Monday while the Nasdaq rallied about 2.7%. Our calculation puts the gap at a $367 billion key-person discount. The business, priced at 11.1x fiscal-2028 earnings, has not changed. The governance profile has, and the Biagetti Method now prices that in.
Live Nvidia quote and one-month chart: the card updates in real time, so the price you see may differ from the late-session figures used in this analysis.
This note updates the Nvidia call in our Best AI Stocks for 2027 ranking, published before the weekend, and our November 6 Nvidia note (in Italian). The framework is the one set out in The Biagetti Method for Stock Analysis and Valuation.
The bottom line on Nvidia stock after the Huang investigation
The short answer: Nvidia remains a Buy, but we cut it from 5 to 4 stars and lower our Buy Limit from $265 to $248.44. The revenue at stake is small, the earnings power is intact, and the stock already trades about 29% below the revised Buy Limit. What has changed is the risk premium on management: a founder-CEO with no named successor is now the subject of a board probe, a congressional request and an overlapping federal inquiry into one of the company’s largest customers.
| Metric | Value |
|---|---|
| Price (Nov 9, near the close) | about $176.5 (-5.4%) |
| Nasdaq Composite (Nov 9) | about +2.7% |
| Relative underperformance | about 8.1 percentage points |
| P/E on fiscal-2028 EPS of $15.91 | 11.1x |
| Weighted fair value (Street targets) | $331.25 |
| Biagetti Method Buy Limit (new, 25% MoS) | $248.44 |
| Discount to Buy Limit | -28.9% |
| Rating | 4 stars, Buy (from 5 stars) |
Monday’s figures are late-session prints reported by AP via BNN Bloomberg and StockTitan; the official close may differ slightly.
From China with love: what we know, and what is still alleged
The facts that are confirmed are narrow; the allegations are serious and unproven. On Sunday, November 8, Nvidia’s board said independent directors, working with outside counsel, will investigate whether Huang was targeted by a foreign intelligence operation. In the same release, Nvidia published a memo in which Huang acknowledged he had been unfaithful to his wife. The board said it has “no reason to believe” national security or company secrets were compromised and expressed confidence in Huang, who said he will cooperate fully (TechCrunch).
The person at the center of the story is Alice Huang (no relation), a former senior executive at Singapore-based Megaspeed, a large buyer of Nvidia hardware. According to reporting first published by The New York Times in late October, U.S. intelligence officials believe she was recruited by China’s Ministry of State Security. She has not commented publicly, no charges have been reported against either party, and China’s Foreign Ministry called the “so-called Chinese spy narrative” a smear (Al Jazeera).
| Item | Status | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Board investigation by independent directors and outside counsel | Confirmed | Nvidia, Nov 8 |
| Huang’s admission of infidelity | Confirmed | Huang memo, Nov 8 |
| Board: no reason to believe secrets were compromised | Company position, not an independent finding | Nvidia, Nov 8 |
| Alice Huang recruited by Chinese intelligence | Alleged by U.S. officials, per press reports | NYT, Oct 2026 |
| Megaspeed bought more than $4.8 billion of Nvidia chips over two years | Reported | NYT, Oct 2025 |
| Megaspeed diverted chips to China | Under investigation; Megaspeed denies illegal transfers | Press reports |
| Justice Department criminal inquiry into Megaspeed | Reported, per unnamed sources | NYT, Nov 9 |
| Huang briefing for House lawmakers | Requested for November 18 | House Republicans |
One more thread matters for investors. Per The New York Times, as republished by the Philadelphia Inquirer, a Commerce Department inquiry into Megaspeed was halted in 2025 and moved to the Justice Department after Nvidia’s general counsel contacted Bureau of Industry and Security staff. Commerce says it acted strictly by the book, Nvidia says it routinely works with officials to stop smugglers, and The San Francisco Standard notes there is no evidence Nvidia caused the transfer. For a stock, though, “no evidence” and “no headline risk” are not the same thing.
Our calculation: the $367 billion key-person discount
Had Nvidia simply moved with the Nasdaq on Monday, it would have closed near $191.7, not $176.5. That $15.1-per-share gap, multiplied by roughly 24.3 billion shares outstanding, equals about $367 billion of market value the market has attached to one person’s conduct and its possible consequences. The absolute loss on the day was about $245 billion.
| Step | Value |
|---|---|
| Close on Nov 6 | $186.64 |
| Nasdaq move on Nov 9 | about +2.7% |
| Index-implied price | about $191.7 |
| Actual late-session price | about $176.5 |
| Gap per share | about $15.1 |
| Gap x 24.3 billion shares | about $367 billion |
Academic evidence suggests the reaction is not extreme. A 2018 study in the Journal of Financial Economics, cited in Yahoo Finance’s live coverage, found that stocks fall about 4% on average when a CEO is personally implicated in a scandal. Mizuho adds that, in comparable cases, stocks traded flat to 8 percentage points above the index 30 to 90 days later. In behavioral finance terms, Monday was the market pricing a binary tail it cannot yet measure.
Is the China exposure material to earnings?
On the numbers, no. The reported $4.8 billion of Megaspeed purchases over two years compares with about $346 billion of Nvidia revenue across fiscal 2025 and fiscal 2026, roughly 1.4% by our estimate. According to Baird, China-bound H200 shipments were below 1% of fiscal Q2 data center revenue and are excluded from guidance; per Nvidia’s fiscal Q2 release, the Q3 outlook of $108 billion, plus or minus 2%, already assumes zero China data center compute revenue.
The risk is policy, not revenue. Baird lists the plausible U.S. responses: revoking the H200 license for China, blocking Blackwell-class and next-generation parts for Chinese customers, and closing loopholes on shipments to Southeast Asian data centers. Each would hurt the narrative more than the P&L. The bigger second-order cost is that Huang has been Nvidia’s most effective advocate in Washington and Beijing; analysts at Moor Insights and Wedbush both flagged that his credibility in that role is now impaired.
Governance: the question the board cannot dodge
Nvidia has no named successor to the CEO who founded it in 1993. That was a footnote when the stock was a $5 trillion momentum trade; it is a valuation input now. Baird’s Tristan Gerra expects the probe to force a formal leadership-contingency plan, and we would treat its publication as a positive catalyst. Until then, three overlapping tracks keep the headline risk alive: the board review, the requested congressional briefing on November 18 and the Justice Department’s work on Megaspeed.
The Latin question every investigator asks is “Cui prodest?”: who benefits? For shareholders the useful version is narrower: which outcome changes the cash flows? Only one does, a forced CEO change without a credible successor. Everything else is noise around an earnings engine still compounding at triple-digit rates.
Biagetti Method update: why the Buy Limit falls to $248.44
We raise Nvidia’s margin of safety from 20% to 25% to reflect the management pillar, and leave the fundamental pillars unchanged. The Biagetti Method applies twelve pillars in sequence; the Huang investigation touches only two of them, management and risk analysis, but the method is designed so that a weaker pillar shows up in the price you are willing to pay rather than in a forecast you cannot verify.
| Pillar | Before (Nov 6) | After (Nov 9) | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Business quality | Very high | Very high | Unchanged |
| Explicit valuation (P/E fiscal 2028) | 11.7x | 11.1x | Cheaper |
| Catalysts | Nov 17 earnings | Nov 17 earnings, Nov 18 Congress | Two-sided |
| Management | Strong, founder-led | Under investigation, no successor | Downgraded |
| Risk analysis | Capex cycle, policy | Capex cycle, policy, key person | Worse |
| Margin of safety | 20% | 25% | +5 points |
| Weighted fair value | $331.25 | $331.25 | Unchanged |
| Buy Limit | $265.00 | $248.44 | -6.25% |
The weighted fair value blends the Street’s $180 low, $315 median and $515 high targets (25/50/25). We have not cut it for Mizuho’s move from $315 to $250, because the firm kept its Outperform rating and raised estimates; one target cut does not move a 62-analyst median. Baird, by contrast, reiterated Buy with a $500 target.
Scenarios for Nvidia stock into 2027
| Scenario | Probability | What happens | Price signal |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bear | 20% | Probe finds disclosure failures; Huang steps aside without a ready successor; U.S. tightens China and Southeast Asia rules | Retest of the 52-week low near $164 |
| Base | 60% | Board review ends without findings on secrets; Nov 17 print beats the $108B guide; headline risk fades over 30 to 90 days | Toward Mizuho’s $250 and our Buy Limit |
| Bull | 20% | Clean review plus a published succession plan; 2027 hyperscaler capex re-accelerates | Toward the $315 Street median |
These are house scenarios based on the figures in this note, not forecasts. Their value is in showing that the bear case is a governance event, not an earnings collapse: even a 7% fall to the 52-week low would leave the stock near 10x fiscal-2028 consensus earnings.
Catalyst calendar
- Tuesday, November 17, after the close: fiscal Q3 2027 results against $108 billion of guidance at a 74% gross margin (Nvidia’s investor-relations calendar). Expect questions on governance on the call.
- Wednesday, November 18: requested closed-door briefing by Huang for House lawmakers on his ties to Megaspeed.
- Open-ended: the board’s independent review; any Justice Department action on Megaspeed; possible Commerce entity-list decisions.
For the earnings setup, see our August earnings breakdown (in Italian) of the last quarter, when revenue rose 106% to $96.2 billion.
Should you buy Nvidia stock now?
For long-term investors, yes, gradually. At about $176.5 the stock trades 28.9% below our revised Buy Limit and at 11.1x fiscal-2028 earnings, a multiple that already discounts a great deal of bad news. We would split new positions into at least three tranches: before the November 17 print, after it, and after the board review closes. Peers such as AMD (AMD), up about 12% on Monday, and Broadcom (AVGO), up about 8%, show the market is not selling AI, only Nvidia’s governance risk. Our wider view on the sector is in the global 2027 ranking.
| ★★★★★ Biagetti Method rating: BUY (cut from Strong Buy) Price about $176.5 | Buy Limit $248.44 (margin of safety 25%) | Accumulate in tranches through the November 17 print and the board review |
Frequently asked questions about Nvidia stock and the Huang investigation
Why did Nvidia stock fall on November 9, 2026?
Nvidia fell about 5.4% after its board opened an independent investigation into CEO Jensen Huang, who acknowledged a relationship with a Megaspeed executive that U.S. officials reportedly suspect of working for Chinese intelligence.
Is Jensen Huang accused of a crime?
No charges have been reported against Jensen Huang. The board is reviewing whether he was targeted by a foreign intelligence operation, and says it has no reason to believe national security or company secrets were compromised.
How much revenue does Nvidia make from Megaspeed and China?
Very little relative to its size. Reported Megaspeed purchases of more than $4.8 billion over two years equal roughly 1.4% of Nvidia’s revenue in fiscal 2025-2026, and current guidance includes no China data center compute revenue.
Will Jensen Huang step down?
There is no indication he will, for now. The board expressed confidence in him and President Trump publicly backed him. Analysts at Wedbush and Moor Insights see an ouster as unlikely unless the review finds wrongdoing.
What is Nvidia’s Biagetti Method Buy Limit?
Our revised Buy Limit is $248.44, derived from a weighted fair value of $331.25 with a 25% margin of safety, up from 20% to reflect the new governance risk.
When does Nvidia report earnings?
Nvidia reports fiscal Q3 2027 results on Tuesday, November 17, 2026, after the close, with a conference call at 5 p.m. ET.
Important information
This article is independent financial research for educational purposes and does not constitute personalized investment advice or a solicitation to buy or sell securities. Prices for November 9, 2026 are late-session figures and may differ from the official close. All statements about individuals are based on public reporting by TechCrunch, Al Jazeera, The New York Times (via the Philadelphia Inquirer), The San Francisco Standard, Yahoo Finance, Investing.com and TipRanks, linked in the text, and on Nvidia’s own statements. Allegations of espionage and export violations are unproven; no charges have been reported against Jensen Huang or Alice Huang, Megaspeed denies illegal transfers, and China denies the allegations. Before investing, review Nvidia’s filings, financial statements and risk factors on SEC EDGAR, and consider guidance from Investor.gov, FINRA and, for European readers, Consob.
Direttore editoriale, Analista finanziario indipendente e autore di 9 metodi proprietari di analisi finanziaria, e uno di investimenti, pubblicati su relativi libri. Scopri di più su chi siamo e sul nostro lavoro editoriale., oppure leggi tutti i contributi e la biografia di Massimiliano Biagetti.