Asian stocks fragile, Nvidia plummets as board to decide CEO's fate

Asian stocks exhibited fragility as global markets opened on Thursday. Nvidia's shares plummeted after-hours following reports that the company's board may dismiss CEO Jensen Huang. The board convened on Wednesday to deliberate on whether to oust Huang, amid allegations of him having an affair with a suspected Chinese spy and a company executive.

Analyst Jake Dollarhide commented that the situation "looks bad from every single angle" and believed the board would only oust Huang if a known tech industry figure was appointed to replace him. Nvidia's stock dropped over 8% after the bell, negatively impacting the S&P 500 e-mini futures, which fell by 0.4%. Regional indexes showed improvement, with South Korea's Kospi up 0.2%, Taiwan's shares rising 0.5%, Japan's Nikkei 225 increasing by 0.5%, and MSCI's Asia-Pacific index excluding Japan dropping slightly, dragged down by Hong Kong shares.

While Wall Street stocks gained on Wednesday, the S&P 500 recovered 1.3%, nearing a recovery from recent losses since the US midterm elections. The optimism around AI contributed to the rise, with CoreWeave and Anthropic generating positive sentiment, aiding the S&P 500 and NASDAQ rally. The dollar index remained stable at 102.87, its peak since April 2021, following Trump's announcement of tariffs.

Bitcoin and ether both experienced minor losses of 0.9%, trading at $73,617.58 and $2,049.44 respectively.