Talking Points This Week: Leadership Shock At Nvidia, Earnings Strength, And The Fog Over Hormuz

The weekend this week arrived with a jolt. Jensen Huang resigned as Nvidia's CEO after admitting an extramarital affair with a woman U.S. officials suspect of working for Chinese intelligence, with further reports of a relationship with a senior Nvidia executive, and reports of yet another affair. Colette Kress, the long-serving CFO, steps in as interim CEO while the board searches for a permanent successor and names its first-ever chair. Nvidia's market value briefly slipped below 4 trillion dollars. At the same time, Anthropic is pricing its IPO in a 70–78 dollar range that could value the company at up to roughly 1.4 trillion dollars on a fully diluted basis, with a concurrent 26 billion dollar private placement from Google, Nvidia, AMD and others. Shares are expected to begin trading around 19 November under the ticker ANT. Overlay this with the ongoing U.S.-Iran conflict—talks remain stalled, President Trump has said "we don't need a deal with Iran," and the Strait of Hormuz remains a flashpoint—and you have a market digesting both a leadership earthquake at one of the world's most valuable technology companies and persistent geopolitical risk. Against that backdrop, India's Q2 FY27 earnings season continues to deliver broad-based strength, with banks, metals, energy and select industrials posting solid growth.

The Nvidia Reset  

Huang's exit is more than a corporate scandal. For years the company was personified by one man who co-founded it, controlled its culture and sold the vision. Markets are now forced to separate the company from the founder. Kress brings deep institutional knowledge after more than a decade as CFO, but Nvidia has no obvious public heir and the board is looking both inside and outside. The stock's sharp drop reflects the key-man risk and the sudden uncertainty around a critical technology supplier. How much of the premium was Jensen, and how much is the underlying platform, will be tested in coming quarters. The Chinese university with PLA ties that still managed to procure H200 chips last month, despite being on a U.S. export blacklist, only underlines how porous the controls remain.

Also Read | Jensen Huang's Alleged Third Affair: Fresh Claims Involve Another Nvidia Employee Amid Chinese Spy Scandal

Anthropic's Trillion-Dollar Test  

Anthropic's listing arrives while technology stocks are under pressure. A 1.4 trillion dollar fully diluted valuation, up from the 965 billion dollar May round but well below earlier whispers of 2 trillion dollars, will be a real-time gauge of Wall Street's residual appetite for large technology offerings. The concurrent private placement from strategic chip and cloud players is both a vote of confidence and a reminder of how tightly capital and infrastructure are linked in the sector. The success or otherwise of this deal will colour sentiment toward large technology listings for the near term for sure.

Hormuz And The Oil Overlay  

The U.S.-Iran war that began with strikes in February continues. A June memorandum of understanding has expired, both sides have resumed exchanging fire, and diplomatic channels are open but fragile. Trump's latest comments - that the United States does not need a deal, controls the Strait and holds Iranian assets - have not yet produced a sharp oil spike, but the risk premium has not disappeared either. Any escalation that disrupts flows through Hormuz would hit India through the usual channels: imported inflation, currency pressure and margin compression for energy-intensive businesses. For now the market is treating the situation as a slow-burn rather than an acute crisis.

Can China Upend Commercial Aviation?

The president of Emirates says it's only a matter of time. The biggest hurdle for Chinese participation in the aircraft industry, according to Tim Clark, the president of Emirates, remains a lack of certification by authorities, including the US Federal Aviation Administration or their equivalents in Europe and Canada. Clark says that once certification occurs, it's 'game on' for Chinese manufacturers such as Comac, which is building a C919 model and has conceptualised other alternative widebody offerings.
Source - Bloomberg

India's Earnings Season Holds Up  

While global headlines dominate, domestic results continue to impress. Banks under coverage delivered roughly 20 percent earnings growth with stable asset quality and lower provisions. Broader data points to median profit growth in the mid-teens to low-20s across thousands of companies, with large-caps leading. Specific standouts include Techno Electric (revenue up 31 percent, operating margin 16.3 percent, PAT up 52 percent on strong EPC execution and a healthy book-to-bill), Manappuram Finance (NII up 41 percent, gold AUM nearly doubling), Hindustan Copper (revenue up 64 percent, net profit up 182 percent on operating leverage) and Mishra Dhatu (revenue up 41 percent, margins expanding on high-value defence and aerospace work). Meesho saw a partial exit by SoftBank's SVF II Meerkat at a modest discount, but the stake remains material. The earnings recovery looks broader than a one-quarter bounce.

Valuations, Gold And Other Cross-Currents  

Analyst Charlie Bilello notes that the S&P 500's forward 12-month P/E has fallen to 17.7, the lowest since November 2023 and is now in line with the 15-year average, as 2026 earnings estimates have risen far faster than prices. In India the picture is more mixed; many stocks still trade at premiums, though the earnings delivery is helping. However, on estimates of FY27 EPS of 1250 and another 12% earnings growth for FY28, India valuations are not rich. They are fine. On gold, some technical work suggests the recent drawdown may be exhausting itself, and any liquidity stress or earlier Fed easing would be supportive. The longer-term case - insurance against monetary debasement and rising debt-service costs - remains intact. Federal Reserve's Christopher Waller has said he supports a December hike and would back 50 basis points if inflation accelerates further, a reminder that the U.S. policy path is still data-dependent.

Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal indicated that discussions with the U.S. and Canada are progressing without a hard deadline, Embraer and Bombardier are interested in India, and negotiations have begun with Mexico for a preferential agreement while GCC talks expand. Domestically, net direct tax collections are up nearly 12 percent and have crossed Rs 14 lakh crore in FY27, railways saw a festive revenue bump, and the government is pushing medical tourism.

By The Way…  

The Anthropic IPO pricing and first trading day, Nvidia's upcoming earnings under new leadership, and any fresh signals from the Iran channel will set the tone into the following week. India's results calendar is done, and the earnings strength is truly broad. Have a weekend as colorful as the earnings strength India Inc has exhibited.

Also Read | Nvidia Trades Cheaper Than TechM, LTIMindtree on P/E Ratio: Should You Buy It?