Markets live: ASX opens lower, Nvidia shares dive after Jensen Huang’s exit

US Senate Banking Committee Chairman Tim Scott has requested Nvidia’s former CEO Jensen Huang and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and to testify over national security concerns.

“Recent reports raise serious concerns about our national security and the protection of sensitive US technology,” Mr Scott wrote on X.

If you can’t make it to Canberra, you can still enjoy the thrill of hurried, hushed whispering by members on the House Economics Committee panel which is being marginally picked up on their mics.

At this stage of the day it’s probably about lunch plans, but if there’s anything more exciting we’ll let you now.

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NAB CEO Andrew Irvine has been consistent that the 2,500 job cuts are not due to artificial intelligence (AI).

But in discussing the issue more broadly he says that:

“I don’t want to also obfuscate the matter that I think AI will come in more impactful ways not just to our bank but to all businesses large and small…

“I think our ‘run the bank’ pool will get smaller over time”.

Katie Notopoulos, a senior correspondent from Business Insider, has told the ABC News Channel that she doesn’t think Nvidia is going to collapse despite all the uncertainty.

“I mean, at this point, the company is — I don’t want to use the phrase ‘too big to fail’, but it kind of feels like it’s that,” she said.

By all means people still need Nvidia’s chips. The AI sector needs these chips, they are going to continue to sell them and make lots of money doing these chips.”

She said what happened to Apple could be seen in Nvidia.

“It’s possible that a new CEO could come in and might be something kind of like Tim Cook coming in after Steve Jobs where maybe it’s less innovation and vision, but Tim Cook made a lot of money for Apple.

“He’s very successfully made the company grow and sold lots of iPhones. We could see something like that.”

However, Notopoulos said there was going to be some concern about what’s happening with all these other AI companies if Nvidia is maybe not on the same deal-making position as it used to be.

“The thing that is confusing at the moment is their [Nvidia] business touches so many different other AI companies,” she added.

“They are invested in OpenAI and lots of other AI companies.

“They sort of were this giant cash spigot for the entire AI industry, that could prop up all these risky bets.”

The House Economics Committee is back from break, continuing to grill NAB CEO Andrew Irvine.

No fireworks so far, but lots of questions about job cuts and yesterday’s underpayment settlement: paying almost $170 million back to more than 60,000 employees.

He’s also been asked, repeatedly, if excessive government spending is increasing pressure on inflation (and thus, interest rates).

It’s something the Liberal members of the committee are keen to prosecute, as it would suggest the Albanese government is contributing to the cost-of-living crunch.

As with the ANZ and Westpac CEO’s yesterday, they generally agree about the broad concept of spending and demand, but shy away from pointing the finger at the federal government.

Here’s some of Andrew Irvine’s answer, as an example:

“We are one integrated economy … if we had less spending by federal, state and local [governments], that would take demand out of the economy and bring demand and supply closer together”

Commonwealth Bank CEO Matt Comyn is due after the lunch break, at 1.30PM.

We’ll bring you updates.

Well, according to her bio on Nvidia’s website, she’s been with the company since 2013 and is now serving as interim CEO, while continuing in her role as chief financial officer.

She’s got decades of experience in the technology industry, having previously held senior finance roles at Cisco and Microsoft.

In fact, she spent 13 years at Microsoft, including four years as CFO of its “Server and Tools” division. Before that, she worked at Texas Instruments in various finance positions.

She also holds an MBA from Southern Methodist University.

The ASX 200 has opened the day 0.5% lower.

145 stocks are down, 41 advanced and 14 remain steady.

Industrials and miners are down today.  Note iron ore prices are off again.

And as oil climbed, energy stocks are leading the gains.

NAB CEO Andrew Irvine has been grilled in front of a parliamentary committee about 2,500 job cuts announced last month.

He’s largely repeated lines from the time of the announcement.

Committee chair Ed Husic: “You haven’t explained why those 2500 were surplus.”

“What we were looking to do was identify areas to de-duplicate, to simplify the company.”

Irvine goes on to say he has reduced his executive team by 15%.

Husic counters that more jobs are being sent offshore, to places like Vietnam and India where wages are cheaper.

Husic: “A lot of these roles could be done onshore… Help me understand why it’s important to cut 2500 jobs here while you’re growing offshore?”

NAB’s CEO explains that about 7 years ago, about 70% of the bank’s IT workforce was outsourced to third-party vendors.

“What we’ve systematically done is the inverse, from 70/30 to 30/70,” he said, essentially paying a NAB workforce in India and Vietnam directly rather than paying Infosys or similar providers.

Husic asks: “Why can’t this work be done in Australia? Is this just a simple way to cut labour costs and you’ll never bring back those roles?”

Irvine doesn’t buy in :

“Labour is one driver of decision making but it’s not the major driver. Australia is simply not producing enough STEM graduates. They are producing vast amounts of STEM graduates, I hope they’ll produce more [here].

“We’ve struggled [to recruit].”

To round it out, Ed Husic says he’s worried for NAB employees: they’re either going to be systematically underpaid or should head overseas, where they’ll earn lower wages.

One of the biggest tests yet of the artificial intelligence boom is about to hit the share market.

Anthropic, the company behind AI tool Claude, is preparing to go public in what could become one of the biggest IPOs in history.

The company is seeking a valuation of up to US$1.4 trillion and Australian investors are among those being given the chance to buy in. Is Anthropic the next trillion-dollar AI giant? Or could this be the moment investors get cold feet on the AI boom?

ABC Business Daily podcast host Carrington Clarke caught up with Lochlan Halloway from Morningstar earlier to talk about what we can expect.

In his opening statement, NAB CEO Andrew Irvine has discussed three key things:

• The Australian economy
• Recent layoffs
• Getting busted for underpaying 66,000 workers for more than a decade

Irvine discussed the hard call to sack about 2,500 workers, saying NAB needs to be “match fit” as an institution.

“These were very difficult decisions … our approach is that every colleague needs to be treated with care, dignity and with respect.

“These changes will better position NAB [for the future].

“I repeat that there will be no material impact on customer-facing banking roles.”

He went on to discuss AI, which he says “will be as consequential to how we live and work as any previous industrial revolution”.

Was also keen to emphasise: “Recent workforce changes were not driven by AI.”

He’s now starting to talk about the court-enforceable undertaking about underpaying staff.

They’ve paid back about $170 million and a $2 million fine.

“Paying our people correctly is non-negotiable,” he notes.

We’re underway.

Chair Ed Husic is talking and NAB CEO Andrew Irvine is just starting now.

Thanks for the spot Stevie.

Dan Ives, a partner and senior managing director at Yorkville Ives,  cut his price target on Nvidia shares from $US300 to $US225 on the anticipation of Jensen Huang’s exit from the company.

Even before Jensen Huang’s departure was confirmed, one of Wall Street’s most prominent tech bulls was already preparing for life at Nvidia without him.

 Dan Ives, a partner and senior managing director at Yorkville Ives,  cut his price target on Nvidia shares from $US300 to $US225 as he anticipated Huang’s removal as CEO.

“We also believe the old Jensen with the black leather jacket, Godfather, AI visionary viewed as a rock star globally is over and in the past.”

Ives described the scandal as a dark day for Nvidia and a major blow to Huang’s legacy, arguing that the board needed to move quickly to find a replacement.

But despite the turmoil, he’s sticking with his outperform rating.

“Nvidia remains the clear leader in GPU chips for the AI Revolution. They are roughly 2-3 years ahead of the nearest competitor and the demand trajectory the next few years is not changing because Jensen is gone.”

He’s also tipped Nvidia’s chief financial officer Colette Kress as a potential successor, while floating Apple’s Tim Cook as a possible outside contender.

Reuters is reporting that senior officials are discussing whether Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick should be pushed out, citing two people familiar with the matter.

Lutnick has been facing growing criticism over the Trump administration’s handling of AI chip exports to China, with lawmakers questioning why dozens of Chinese companies haven’t been added to a key US trade blacklist.

The US has not added any companies to that list since October 2025, which is the longest gap in more than a decade.

The criticism began well before Huang’s resignation, but the scandal has brought fresh scrutiny to Washington’s oversight of advanced chip exports to China.

Earlier on Thursday, a White House official said President Donald Trump maintained complete confidence in Lutnick.

The corporate regulator has taken action against two banks in two days. ASIC commissioner Alan Kirkland told Alicia Barry this should send a signal to banks that they need to get the “basics right” for customers.

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And you can follow along to ABC’s live blog, which will keep you across all the developments here.

If you’ve woken up to a suspiciously quiet inbox this morning, you are not alone.

Microsoft has been having a major outage and has confirmed the outage is affecting Outlook, Teams, Copilot and other platforms.

So how are you managing to get a hold of a colleague or client this morning? The good old-fashioned way? I.e. pick up the phone? WhatsApp? Carrier pigeon?

Let us know in the comments.  Or perhaps you’re just enjoying the peace and quiet!

• ASX 200 Futures: -0.62% to 9,125 points (live values below)
• Australian dollar: -0.6 to 68.05 US cents
• Wall Street:  S&P 500 -0.23%, Dow -0.15%, Nasdaq -0.38%
• Europe: Dax +0.4%, FTSE +0.25%, Eurostoxx600 +0.14%
• Spot gold: -2.65% to $US3,881/ounce
• Oil: Brent Crude +3.63% to $US96.13/barrel
• Iron ore: -2% to $US90.40/tonne
• Bitcoin: -4% $US71,516
• 10-year bonds: US 5.1%, Australia 5.1%

Prices current at around 7.15 AM AEDT

In case you missed it, you can catch finance presenter David Chau’s wrap of yesterday’s finance news below.

He covers the latest on Nvidia. Meanwhile, the ASX ended Thursday slightly lower, and the Australian dollar dropped to 68.4 US cents.

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