Nasdaq-100 futures slip as reports that Nvidia's board is preparing to replace Jensen Huang knock the AI leader lower before the bell, one session after the chip trade's strongest day in weeks

The 90-Second Read

1. Wednesday was a relief day The S&P 500 rose 1.31% to 7,619.38, the Nasdaq Composite gained 1.60% to 25,466.19, the Dow added 0.49% to 52,486.49 and the Russell 2000 rose 0.88% to 2,846.26. The fear gauge fell to 17.49. The bond market was closed for Veterans Day, so the rally ran without a Treasury market to argue with it.
2. CoreWeave lit the chips CoreWeave jumped 24.7% on the quarter it reported Tuesday night, Micron rose 11.9%, AMD gained 7.3% and the large semiconductor ETF added 4.82%. Nvidia lagged the group with a 2.87% gain to 173.73.
3. Then the boardroom story turned After the close, reports said Nvidia's board is preparing to remove Huang, is working with an outside firm on candidates and is weighing an interim chief executive. The company had announced no decision as of this morning. Nvidia indicates about 6.5% lower, and CoreWeave gives back about 6% of Wednesday's jump.
4. The AI trade is rotating, not leaving AMD indicates about 3% higher and Broadcom about 2% higher while Nvidia falls, which is why the Nasdaq-100 is down less than its largest component's weight would suggest. Whether the bid in the other AI names survives the cash open is the cleanest read on how far the governance story spreads.
5. Bonds return to a long-end test The cash Treasury market reopens with the 10-year at 4.98% from Tuesday's close and a $25B 30-year bond auction at 1:00 PM, the first long-end supply since October's hot consumer-price report. Weekly jobless claims print at 8:30 against 189K the prior week.
6. Four Fed voices today Cleveland's Hammack, Governor Barr, San Francisco's Daly and New York's Williams all speak. Vice Chair Bowman's Tuesday speech was the most cautious of the week on the size of further hikes; the full read is in Section 10.
7. Levels into the open A public dealer-gamma (GEX) model puts the put wall at 7,600, the call wall at 7,700 and the gamma flip at 7,636.51. ES Dec carries a 21.12 premium to cash, so the floor sits near 7,621 in ES, the flip near 7,658 and the ceiling near 7,721.

The Scoreboard

Rows with a clock time are overnight reads measured against Wednesday's settlements. Cash index, Treasury and single-stock rows are the latest closes; the premarket indications for the single names are described in Section 9.

Sentiment & Flow Gauges

Flow Read

Wednesday's rally was the kind the bears did not want to see: buyers took most of the volume, new lows all but vanished, and the share of members above their long-term averages ticked up rather than lagging the index. None of the four breadth conditions fired. The weak spot is positioning rather than participation. Single-stock put buying collapsed on the day, so the overnight Nvidia news landed on a market that had just taken its hedges off, and the gap between a falling equity put/call and a still-fearful survey crowd says professionals moved faster than individuals. That is the setup in which a single-name shock can travel further at the open than its index weight would justify, especially on the negative-gamma side of the flip.

Yesterday's Calls Graded

Calendar & Scenario Map

Prior figures are shown where the calendar carries them; consensus is left blank where no first-hand estimate was available.

Pivot Points & Gamma Map

Cannon Daily Levels · Pivots, Support & Resistance

Cannon Daily Levels · Trend & 52-Week Range

Other weight in the November 20 chain: the largest put open interest below the market is lower, at 7,500 with 41,288 contracts, with 23,695 at 7,400 and 21,804 at 7,600. On the call side, 20,839 contracts sit at 7,800, a shelf near the top of the strike window used here rather than a confirmed peak. Cannon's ES Dec levels put the pivot at 7,621.33, first resistance at 7,695.17 and first support at 7,571.17.

The two option maps disagree on the floor, and the disagreement is the signal. The all-expiry dealer model puts the put wall at 7,600, right under the market, while next week's monthly chain carries its heaviest puts a hundred points lower, at 7,500. In the ES contract that expires this afternoon, the largest put open interest below the market is 6,359 contracts at 7,600, and the largest call open interest above it is 3,540 at 7,675 with 3,476 at 7,700. Today's pin therefore sits between 7,600 and 7,700 in ES terms, the structural floor sits at 7,500 in SPX terms, and the stretch between them is where a negative-gamma break would have the least option support.

Institutional Positioning

Desk Shift Tracker

Macro Pressure Map

Portfolio Positioning

Fed Watch

The federal funds target sits at 3.75% to 4.00%, and this week's debate is about the size of a December hike, not whether one comes. Waller has put a half point on the table and Logan wants at least two more quarter-point moves. Vice Chair Bowman, speaking Tuesday, added the most cautious voice of the week. She said "there is still work to do to bring inflation closer to 2 percent," but also that "the benefit of additional policy tightening has to be carefully weighed against its costs for interest-rate-sensitive sectors," noting that higher rates appear to be holding back investment at newer and medium-sized firms and that financial conditions have tightened.

That is the clearest argument this week from the Fed's leadership for pacing the hikes, and it matters for how the market hears today's speakers. Hammack at 9:00 and Williams at 6:30 PM are the two to watch: if either echoes Bowman's cost-benefit framing, the half-point talk loses momentum before producer prices on Friday. Barr's 10:00 remarks are on artificial intelligence and inequality, and Daly speaks at 1:10 PM, minutes after the 30-year auction closes.

What the Consensus Is Missing