A trader works on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in New York, US, on Thursday, Nov. 12, 2026.

The tech-heavy Nasdaq dropped 0.39% to end at 25,366.09, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average shed 189.40 points, or 0.36%, to 52,297.09. The S&P 500 fell 0.35% and closed at 7,592.40.

The Nasdaq Composite fell on Thursday as investors assessed the departure of Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang and the outlook of the conflict in the Middle East.

Nvidia shares dipped more than 4% to touch a 52-week low after the company announced that Huang had resigned and named CFO Colette Kress as interim CEO. This comes after Huang reportedly had an affair with an alleged Chinese spy.

While the stock posted a loss on the day, selling pressure had eased considerably from earlier in the session. Shares were down double digits at one point after the announcement.

Investors moved into competitors of Nvidia, particularly Advanced Micro Devices and Broadcom , which were up more than 5% each. Hyperscalers such as Alphabet — a key buyer of Nvidia chips and leader of the AI rally — also increased nearly 2%.

"This is a golden opportunity for Amazon, for Google, for AMD, for Broadcom, for OpenAI and Anthropic, who are hiring chip experts to help them design their own chips," said Jed Ellerbroek, portfolio manager at Argent Capital Management.

"Nvidia's fate as one company is one thing, but this AI revolution is way bigger than that," he also said. "If Nvidia falls from grace and their chips are no longer the best, and AMDs are better or Google's are better, then people will switch over and buy them. The demand for the chips is not going down."

Hurting sentiment further, oil prices rose after after President Donald Trump said in a Truth Social post, "We don't need a deal with Iran. Those days have long since passed." U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude futures rose 2.55% to settle at $88.74 per barrel, while Brent crude futures added 3.3% to settle at $95.82 a barrel.