Market Midday: Stocks Lower, Nvidia Falls, Treasury Flags Commerce Over China Chips • 11/13/26

0:00CNBC Business News Update Market Midday. I'm Jessica Ettinger. Major averages all in the red on this Friday afternoon, although they are on pace for a winning week. NVIDIA shares are sliding again today. Let's start with the Dow. It's down 86 points. Cisco shares, they're down almost 6%, dragging the Dow lower. NVIDIA down 3.5 % this afternoon. The S &P 500 index falling 61 points. That's eight tenths of a percent. The Nasdaq is down 335 points, 1.3 percent. Most all of the chip makers are in the red this afternoon. AMD plunging 10 percent. One name is in the green. Cerebris Systems up 8 percent.

0:46Treasury Secretary Scott Bessend on CNBC blaming Howard Lutnick's Commerce Department for NVIDIA chip leakage to China. Here's CNBC's Eamon Javers. There's a real split now inside the Trump administration over how NVIDIA's partner Megaspeed was treated by the U.S. government and whether more scrutiny should have been placed on the potential for illegal shipments of advanced ships to China. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent was on CNBC this morning and pointed the finger directly at the Commerce Department, which, of course, is run by Secretary Howard Ludwig. I can tell you there was coordination.

1:20Treasury, War, USTR and state, they were in favor of putting Megaspeed on the entity list for months. But Commerce has the pin. Commerce BIS has the pin. Secretary Howard Lutnick is now scheduled to testify about all this on Capitol Hill in December. That announcement came amid a swirl of news reports that senior Trump administration officials are considering Lutnick's future at the Department of Commerce. Former NVIDIA CEO Jensen Wang, who has resigned under a cloud of scandal related to an affair with an executive at a customer, Megaspeed, had pushed to ease restrictions on the export of advanced AI chips to China.

2:02Here's a take from Evercore ISI's Sarah Bianchi on CNBC. There's a lot of concerns on national security grounds. And obviously the leaking and such and even Vessen's comments, you know, don't give you a lot of comfort here. If they were told to be putting these companies on the entity list and didn't, that is a real concern. And why didn't that happen? Inflation at the wholesale level rose last month three-tenths of a percent, putting the annual rate at six and a half percent, the highest in nearly four years in the PPI producer price index for October. This after a consumer read that was hotter than expected.

2:42That came out earlier this week. Here's Chicago Fed President Austin Goolsbee on CNBC. These have been signs of trouble. We've had some signs of trouble now for several months in a row. If you look at how broad based the inflation is, it's not just that we're above the target and have been for some time. It's that in categories that are not driven by oil prices and not driven by tariffs, you're still seeing stalled progress and in some cases going the wrong way. Open AI launching a chat GPT wallet, allowing its DOTS agent to make purchases for you with your permission. It's only available to pro subscribers, though, who are 18 years old.

3:29Open AI has partnered with Amex, MasterCard and Visa for this product. Microsoft says email delivery and service availability is improving today across more of its infrastructure after yesterday's outage that virtually shut down Outlook teams in 365. The company says it does not suspect malicious activity was the cause. Today's Friday the 13th. Jessica Edinger, CNBC. Introducing Fidelity Trader Plus, the next generation of advanced trading from Fidelity. Customize your tools and charts and access them seamlessly across desktop, web, and mobile. For faster trades anywhere you go. Try the all-new Fidelity Trader Plus.

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