Nvidia Faces Earnings Test Without Jensen Huang at the Helm

Nvidia shares fell roughly 5% in Thursday trading after Chief Executive Jensen Huang resigned with immediate effect, according to a BlackBull Markets analysis published on TradingView. The drop puts the stock on track for its sixth consecutive weekly decline — the company's longest losing streak since 2012.

The timing is awkward. Nvidia reports earnings on Tuesday, November 17, and analysts forecast revenue of roughly $109.2 billion. But those numbers, as the analysis points out, cover a period when Huang was still running the company. The report will therefore tell investors almost nothing about how the post-Huang era is actually performing.

What did the brokerages do after the resignation?

Wall Street's response has been sharply divided rather than uniformly negative, and the details matter more than the headlines.

• Bernstein downgraded Nvidia to Market Perform and halved its price target from $400 to $200.
• Oppenheimer downgraded the stock to Perform and removed its price target altogether.
• Wells Fargo maintained its Overweight rating but cut the target from $315 to $300.
• Citi kept its Buy rating while reducing the target from $285 to $225 — a cut of about 21%.
• Bank of America also maintained Buy, trimming its target from $350 to $280, a 20% reduction.
• Morgan Stanley removed Nvidia from its top-pick list but kept its Overweight rating and its $300 target unchanged.

The spread is striking. Bernstein's new $200 target sits exactly half its old one, while Morgan Stanley's $300 figure did not move at all. That is a $100 gap between the most cautious and most steadfast targets on the Street, based on the same set of facts.

What does the earnings date actually tell investors?

Not much about the future, and that is the core problem. The $109.2 billion consensus revenue forecast reflects demand generated under Huang's leadership. If the quarter beats or misses, it measures a company that no longer exists in its previous form.

The five percent single-day drop also needs context. For a stock of Nvidia's size, that translates into tens of billions of dollars in market value erased in one session — on a personnel announcement, not on numbers.

Who still believes in the stock?

Four of the six named firms kept positive ratings. Bank of America, Citi and Wells Fargo all held Buy or Overweight stances while cutting targets, suggesting they see the selloff as an overreaction rather than a fundamental break. Morgan Stanley's decision to drop Nvidia from its top-pick list while leaving the $300 target intact captures the ambivalence: still worth owning, no longer the obvious call.

The two outright downgrades came from Bernstein and Oppenheimer, and Oppenheimer's move to withdraw its target entirely is arguably the most telling signal in the batch. A analyst who removes a target is not lowering an estimate; they are saying they can no longer forecast with confidence.

What should readers watch on November 17?

The revenue figure itself is the least interesting number on the page, because it covers the Huang era by definition. The more revealing information will be whatever guidance and commentary the company offers about demand, order books and leadership transition going forward — and whether management can reassure a Street that just cut targets by 20 to 50 percent.

As BlackBull Markets frames the question for anyone eyeing the dip: would even strong earnings be enough to restore confidence in a company whose reported results no longer describe its current leadership? Until Nvidia answers that, the longest losing streak since 2012 looks less like a buying signal and more like a market waiting for evidence.