As if last week couldn't have gotten any busier, the biggest business story of the year rocked investors as scandal embroiled Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang and forced the "godfather of AI" to step aside, a proposition that looked unthinkable only days earlier.

But lest we forget, the news cycle goes on, and this week brings its own major headline: Anthropic's (ANTH.PVT) IPO, expected to price on Wednesday and trade on Thursday.

As the first pure-play generative AI company to come to market, investors will be paying close attention to every angle.

Markets will go into a fresh week continuing the feeling of post-election whiplash, though perhaps for different AI-based reasons. But incredibly, the S&P 500 (^GSPC) is almost exactly where it was before the election results as, once again, major headlines and crosscurrents have more or less canceled each other out.

Lots of action, little motion, broadly speaking.

Anthropic will dominate headlines this week, but that doesn't mean we've got an empty calendar of other news happening. On the earnings front, Nvidia (NVDA) (of all companies, what timing!) will report its quarterly results on Tuesday, with interim CEO Colette Kress set to helm the management call after the sudden call-up.

It's also a huge week for retail. We've got big box stores Target (TGT) on Wednesday, and Walmart (WMT) and Ross Stores (ROST) on Thursday, with BJ's Wholesale Club (BJ) rounding out the group on Friday for a check on consumer spending and outlook.

In the tech space, Palo Alto Networks (PANW) and Bending Spoons (BSP) will report on Wednesday and Friday, respectively. Two of China's largest companies, Baidu (BIDU) and Alibaba (BABA), will give their own results on Monday and Thursday, respectively.

On the economic data calendar, the key readouts will be retail sales data on Tuesday and the University of Michigan's twice-monthly readout on consumer sentiment on Friday.

An AI world without Jensen looks to what's next

In a move practically unthinkable only a week ago, Jensen Huang resigned on Thursday as CEO of Nvidia, the world's leading chipmaker and, up until recently, the market's most valuable company.

The headlines trickled in slowly at first before a deluge of reports revealed affairs first with a Chinese national suspected by US intelligence to be a spy for Beijing — and then with two Nvidia employees.

Here's a big rundown of all the news.

While the board looks for a permanent replacement, CFO Colette Kress has taken up the mantle as interim CEO, with tons of open questions facing the company Huang founded more than 30 years ago.