NEW YORK, May 15, 2026, 09:36 EDT
- Nvidia fell roughly 3% out of the gate, pulling back from its record streak fueled by AI demand and optimism around China.
- Most of the drag traced back to slipping hopes for a swift U.S.-China deal on Nvidia’s H200 chip sales.
- Large tech stocks slipped, pressured by rising bond yields and renewed inflation concerns.
Nvidia slipped early Friday in New York, dropping 2.8% to $229.12 and snapping a weeklong surge that had taken it to new records. Investors pulled back, dialing down expectations for an immediate win in China chip sales. Shares finished Thursday at $235.75.
This shift is notable: Nvidia once more stands out as the market’s top AI play. Barron’s pointed out the stock climbed roughly 20% over a seven-day rally—driven by bullishness over AI investment, hopes for China business, and anticipation ahead of next week’s earnings.
The decline came down to politics instead of anything technical. Jamieson Greer, U.S. Trade Representative, told reporters that chip export controls barely made it into the Beijing meetings with Chinese officials. That put a damper on hopes for a speedy restart of Nvidia’s H200 sales in China.
“We did not talk about chip export controls at the meeting,” Greer said on Bloomberg TV, Reuters reported. Shares that had climbed on speculation Jensen Huang, Nvidia’s CEO, could use his late addition to President Donald Trump’s Beijing visit to revive the stalled deal, quickly reversed. Reuters
The H200, a high-end AI chip designed for data centers, powers training and inference for large-scale models. On Thursday, Reuters said the U.S. authorized around 10 firms in China—among them Alibaba, Tencent, ByteDance, and JD.com—to purchase the processors. No shipments have gone out yet.
For investors, that gap looms large. Nvidia previously dominated around 95% of China’s advanced chip market before the U.S. tightened export restrictions, and Reuters noted that China once made up 13% of Nvidia’s revenue. Beijing’s reluctance to snap up U.S. chips signals worries about undermining its own drive for homegrown technology.
Chip stocks sold off. AMD and Intel both dropped over 3% ahead of the bell, The Wall Street Journal noted. Semiconductor names in both Asia and Europe slipped too, after the summit ended without a breakthrough on tech agreements.
Macro wasn’t on investors’ side. Global equities slipped Friday, pressured by rising bond yields and a fresh bout of inflation anxiety. Reuters flagged that Nasdaq futures turned lower and U.S. Treasury yields edged up, driven in part by stronger oil prices. When yields move up, the pain typically hits growth names hardest since higher rates eat into the value of their future profits.
Tim Graf, head of macro strategy for EMEA at State Street Markets, isn’t convinced the recent equity surge can keep going. “I think if anything is enough to create a pullback, it is what’s happening in rate markets,” he told Reuters, highlighting the risk that inflation might linger above central-bank targets. Reuters
Prediction markets backed up that outlook for rates. On Polymarket, traders assigned a 67% probability to the Fed making no rate cuts in 2026, while the odds of a single cut sat at 16%—not much of a cushion for pricey tech stocks hoping for looser policy.
Even so, Nvidia’s core AI narrative stayed intact—the drop didn’t spell disaster. The company set its first-quarter fiscal 2027 results for May 20, and back in April, said CFO Colette Kress plans to post written commentary right after those numbers go out.
Bearish bets face a hurdle: Nvidia previously told investors its fiscal first-quarter outlook excluded any data-center compute revenue from China. So, unless management has quietly moved the goalposts since then, the lack of H200 shipments likely won’t hit near-term guidance.
Friday’s trading isn’t one-sided. If earnings land strong, Beijing’s sign-off gets clearer, or H200 deliveries kick into gear, the stock could snap back fast. But if China leans harder into Huawei and homegrown chips, and U.S. yields climb, justifying the China premium gets tricky.
