Finance Morning | November 13, 2026: Huang's Exit Hits Korean Stocks as KOSPI Slips Below 5,300

📊 Asia Markets Today

1. Huang's Exit Hits Korean Stocks as KOSPI Slips Below 5,300

Source: Aju Daily

South Korean stocks gave up early gains on November 13. Hit by the sudden resignation of Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang and related news, the KOSPI briefly broke above the 5,500 mark before turning lower and closing at 5,290.53, down 52.20 points or 0.98% from the previous session.

The index opened at 5,452.41, up 109.68 points or 2.05%, then climbed as much as 3.03% intraday to 5,504.44. Foreign investors sold a net 550.5 billion won (about 2.75 billion yuan) on the main board, while institutions and retail investors bought a net 2.1 billion won and 17.2 billion won respectively.

Foreign selling was concentrated in SK Hynix, which fell 3.03%, while Samsung Electronics lost 0.96%. The KOSDAQ rose as much as 4.20% to 725.81 before closing at 699.66, up 0.45%, failing to hold the 700 level. Overnight on Wall Street, the Dow fell 189.4 points or 0.36%, the S&P 500 lost 0.35% and the Nasdaq 0.39%; Nvidia opened down as much as 13.08% and ended 4.34% lower.

Source

2. Wall Street Banks Cut Nvidia Price Targets

Source: 21st Century Business Herald

After Jensen Huang resigned as Nvidia's president, CEO and director, Wall Street has repriced the company's valuation. Evercore ISI analyst Mark Lipacis cut his rating to "in line" from "outperform" and slashed his price target to $186 from $465, removing the stock from the firm's "best core portfolio" list.

Oppenheimer analyst Rick Schafer downgraded Nvidia to "perform" and withdrew his target, calling Huang's departure "a major, potentially thesis-changing event" that could trigger a talent drain. Bernstein's Stacy Rasgon cut his target to $200 from $400, while KeyBanc, Melius Research, William Blair, RBC Capital Markets and Stifel also lowered ratings or targets.

Nvidia shares plunged more than 14% early on Thursday before bargain hunting trimmed the loss to 4.34%, closing at $166.19, more than 30% below their October 6 peak. The company named executive vice president and CFO Colette Kress as interim CEO while keeping her CFO role, and appointed Harvey C. Jones as its first board chairman. The November 17 earnings call will be Kress's first public test.

Source

3. China's Social Financing Stock Up 7.2% at End-October

Source: 21st Century Business Herald

Financial statistics released by the People's Bank of China on November 13 showed that at the end of October, M2, the outstanding stock of social financing and the outstanding balance of RMB loans grew 7.1%, 7.2% and 4.7% year on year respectively, with social financing growth picking up from a month earlier.

In terms of structure, bonds and equity financing together accounted for 52.99% of social financing inflows, 13.87 percentage points more than the share of loans. Corporate bond balances reached 36.92 trillion yuan at end-October, up 9.6% year on year, with net corporate bond financing of 3.1 trillion yuan so far this year, 1.27 trillion yuan more than a year earlier.

The outstanding balance of RMB loans stood at 283.33 trillion yuan, up 4.7% year on year. The weighted average interest rate on new corporate loans was about 2.9% in October, some 0.2 percentage point lower than a year earlier, while the rate on new personal housing loans was about 3.1%, broadly flat.

Source

4. BYD Offers Up to 5 Million Yuan for Leads on Online Smear Campaigns

Source: 21st Century Business Herald

BYD's legal department published updates on several rights-protection cases on November 13 and announced a bounty aimed at online smear campaigns.

The company said that for leads on organised, planned efforts by MCN agencies and others to smear BYD, it will pay 500,000 to 5 million yuan to qualifying informants once verified, and 50,000 to 5 million yuan to other qualifying informants.

Source

5. Goldman Sachs Leads Global Financial Firms in Expanding in Hong Kong

Source: Stockstar

Goldman Sachs said in a November 5 statement that it had promoted 109 employees to partner, the largest class since 2010. Asia-Pacific accounted for 20 of the promotions, including nine in Hong Kong, five in Singapore and three in Tokyo, with Hong Kong and Singapore ranking third and fourth among the firm's 21 offices worldwide.

The move is seen as a bellwether, given that Hong Kong added only three partners in the previous round in 2022. The new partner list includes Wang Yajun, head of equity capital markets for Asia ex-Japan, who has executed more than 100 IPOs across Hong Kong, US and mainland markets since joining Goldman and helped issuers raise more than $300 billion in IPOs and follow-on offerings.

Goldman is not alone. Nomura is considering expanding its Hong Kong team and hiring bankers to rebuild its equity capital markets business; Citadel Securities CEO Peng Zhao said the firm added nearly 100 staff in Asia in 2026, about half of them in Hong Kong, and expanded its Hong Kong office space by 40%; market maker Jane Street signed a lease for six floors in Central in 2025.

Source

6. Nikkei Rises 0.53% to Reclaim 61,000

Source: Kyodo News

Tokyo's Nikkei index rebounded on November 13, gaining 322.99 points or 0.53% from the previous day to close at 61,142.35 and reclaim the 61,000 mark. The broader TOPIX added 4.24 points to 3,941.57, up 0.11%, with trading volume at 2.54092 billion shares.

Heavyweight semiconductor test equipment maker Advantest and other chip names drew buyers, briefly pushing the Nikkei up more than 1,000 points. The sector had fallen the previous day on news of Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang's resignation, and investors bought the dip on the 13th.

Overnight, Nvidia slumped in US trading on Huang's exit while rival AMD gained, and the view that the fallout would be limited helped support the Tokyo market.

Source

7. Korean Chip Industry Sees Limited Fallout From Huang's Exit

Source: Hankyoreh

With Jensen Huang gone, attention is on whether the AI market landscape that Nvidia has led will change. AMD, Broadcom and other AI chip competitors saw their shares rise in both regular and after-hours trading, while Google, Amazon, Meta and Microsoft continue to expand in-house silicon.

Nvidia's dominance is still hard to dislodge in the near term. Its edge rests not only on GPU performance but on the CUDA software ecosystem used by AI developers, and moving existing CUDA-based software and infrastructure to other chip platforms requires extra money and time.

Korean chipmakers see limited business impact: Nvidia's position is hard to shake, and much of their output is already locked in through long-term supply agreements (LTAs) with customers. Still, pressure could grow if Washington uses the episode to tighten semiconductor export controls on China; the US Congress is discussing the AI Oversight Act, the Chip Security Act and the Multilateral Alignment of Technology Controls on Hardware (MATCH) Act.

Source

8. Wall Street Warns Stocks Underprice a Run of Fed Hikes

Source: Cailian Press

Treasury yields climbed further when trading resumed on Thursday, with the two-year rate rising to 4.88% and the 10-year rising above 5.13%. Cailian Press reported on November 13 that the move was driven by hotter-than-expected October consumer inflation, which locks in the case for a 25-basis-point hike at the Fed's December meeting and fuels worries about further hikes in 2027.

CME's FedWatch tool shows rate expectations accelerating: futures now price three consecutive 25-basis-point hikes through March next year, which would lift the benchmark range to 4.50%-4.75% from the current 3.75%-4.00%.

3Fourteen Research co-founder and strategist Warren Pies said the market "is not remotely priced for two or more additional hikes." Goldman Sachs chief US economist David Mericle also revised his forecast, adding a 25-basis-point hike in March on top of one in December.

Source

9. Fed Drops October Rate Vote in 2027 Calendar Shake-Up

Source: 21st Century Business Herald

The Federal Reserve published its tentative 2027 meeting calendar on Thursday (November 12) with a major change: the FOMC meeting next October will not vote on rates or issue a post-meeting statement, and will instead focus on long-term monetary policy strategy.

The schedule means the Fed will hold only seven meetings in 2027 instead of the usual eight, and the year's final meeting moves to November from December. Chair Kevin Warsh said good policy requires timely, regular and well-informed assessment, but also time and space for strategic discussion and a longer-term view.

Since Warsh became chair, the Fed has shortened its post-meeting statements and cut the press conference Q&A from about 45 minutes to roughly half an hour. The next meeting is set for December 8-9, 2026, with the first 2027 meeting on January 26-27.

Source

10. French October CPI Hits 3.4%, Highest Since January 2024

Source: Sina Finance

Final data from France's national statistics institute on November 13 showed consumer prices rose 3.4% year on year in October, after a 3.1% gain in September, keeping inflation above 3% and marking the highest reading since January 2024.

Energy prices accelerated for a fourth straight month, rising 24.1% year on year in October versus 21.3% in September. Petroleum product prices rose 38.5%, natural gas 27.1% and electricity 2.7%.

Services prices rose 2.6%, up from 2.4%, while food inflation slowed to 1.2% from 1.4% and manufactured goods prices fell 0.2% after a 0.3% drop. A year earlier, before the Middle East conflict broke out, French inflation was just 0.9%.

Source