AMD Sinks About 10% and Chip Stocks Fall 5% as Traders Unwind the Bet on Nvidia’s Rivals

Finance
Written by Methodical Millions
Colourful editorial illustration of glowing green, red and purple microchips toppling like dominoes on a blue circuit board as a green stock chart line snaps and plunges red

This week's hottest chip trade just reversed. Investors who piled into Nvidia's rivals after Jensen Huang's exit are taking profits, and the whole semiconductor sector is paying for it.

By Methodical Jon | Nov 13, 2026

Advanced Micro Devices (NASDAQ: AMD) fell as much as 10% on Friday, November 13th 2026, giving back a big chunk of the rally it put on after Jensen Huang resigned as CEO of Nvidia (NASDAQ: NVDA). Broadcom (NASDAQ: AVGO) dropped close to 6%, and the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index slid 5% by mid-morning, according to Reuters.

Nvidia fell too, down a little over 4%. Friday's message was simple: nobody in chips is safe from this.

What happened

At 10:16 a.m. ET, AMD was down 9.4% and Broadcom 5.8%, while the chip index was off 5%, Reuters reported. By late morning AMD had slipped 9.94% to $527.13 USD and Nvidia 4.36% to $158.95 USD, per Moneycontrol. Intel fell about 5%, Micron about 5%, Taiwan Semiconductor (NYSE: TSM) more than 3% and ASML about 2%, Yahoo Finance reported.

The pain spread to AI infrastructure. The so-called neoclouds CoreWeave and Nebius fell 10% and 13.7%, and data center names such as IREN, Applied Digital and Core Scientific traded sharply lower, Reuters said. The Nasdaq Composite was down 1.42% at 10:16 a.m. ET.

Broadcom had its own extra hit. Rothschild & Co. Redburn downgraded it to neutral from buy, with analyst Mike Harrison writing that "Broadcom's alignment with Anthropic and OpenAI means the frontier labs need to establish sustained primacy over open models and become self-financing in short order," CNBC reported.

Context: the rotation that ran too far

Nvidia's board accepted Huang's resignation on November 11th and named CFO Colette Kress interim CEO, according to the company's 8-K filing with the SEC. The board also named longtime director Harvey C. Jones as its first-ever chair and is searching for a permanent CEO, Nvidia's newsroom said.

Traders immediately bet that Nvidia's rivals would win. Through Thursday's close, Nvidia was down 11% for the week while AMD had gained 30% and Broadcom 24%, CNBC reported. "Names such as TSMC, names such as Broadcom, names such as Advanced Micro will come as winners of this because they don't have this overhang of a management disruption," Mizuho Americas' Farzin Azam told the network.

That trade got crowded fast. AMD rose about 44.7% over five trading days while Nvidia dropped 8.5%, the widest gap since Nvidia's 1999 IPO, The Kobeissi Letter said, as cited by Moneycontrol. When Nvidia opened slightly higher on Friday, traders started unwinding those bets, Investing.com reported, noting that AMD now trades at roughly 125 times trailing earnings.

Why it matters

Nvidia sits at the center of the AI economy. It sells the chips, invests in customers and partners, and sets the pace for data center spending. That's why a leadership crisis at one company can move CoreWeave, memory makers and data center landlords on the same day.

The timing is also awkward. Nvidia will report third-quarter results on Tuesday, November 17th, as previously scheduled, the company said. Anthropic's IPO is due next week too. "Something that will be interesting to see is if all the supply of new equity is going to be absorbed in a way that doesn't result in selling other AI stocks to kind of fund that," Edward Jones strategist Angelo Kourkafas told Reuters.

Rates aren't helping. Traders fully price a Fed hike in December, Reuters said, even after October producer prices came in slightly softer than expected.

Not every AI name fell. Cerebras jumped more than 11% after raising its 2026 revenue forecast and signing Microsoft as a customer, according to Reuters.

The money lesson

1. Momentum cuts both ways. A stock that rises 45% in five days on a headline can give back a fifth of that in one session when the headline fades. Fast gains built on a story, not on new earnings, are the easiest to lose.

2. Crowded trades unwind together. When everyone buys the same "winners" for the same reason, they also sell them together. That's why AMD, Broadcom and the neoclouds fell as a group.

3. Have a plan before the spike. Decide ahead of time when you'll trim a winner. Waiting for the top usually means selling on the way down.

From the Methodical Millions archive

Friday's reversal is exactly the situation we covered in Episode 10 - Protect your profits. Anyone who bought AMD on Monday and didn't have a plan for taking gains just watched a big part of them disappear in a morning.

What to watch

  • Nvidia's earnings on Tuesday, November 17th. It's the first report under interim CEO Colette Kress, and guidance will show whether customers are staying put.
  • Washington. Lawmakers are pushing for tighter chip export limits to China, and Senate Banking Chairman Tim Scott has asked Huang and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick to testify, Reuters reported.
  • The Anthropic IPO. A huge new AI listing could pull money out of existing AI stocks.
  • Nvidia's CEO search. A strong permanent pick could reverse the rotation for good.

At the time of writing (about 11:30 AM ET on Nov 13, 2026), AMD was trading around $527.13 USD and Nvidia around $158.95 USD, according to Moneycontrol. This article is for informational purposes only and is not financial advice.

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This article may be AI-assisted and is subject to errors and omissions.

Methodical Millions https://methodicalmillions.com
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