Morningstar cut its fair value estimate for Nvidia by about 19% to $250 a share from $310, becoming the latest research house to mark down the chipmaker after Jensen Huang resigned as chief executive. RBC Capital Markets had already lowered its price target to $230 from $330, the San Francisco Standard reported, as Wall Street moved to price in the loss of the only CEO Nvidia has had.

For investors in Asia, the analyst calls matter as much as the share price. Nvidia's spending plans set order books at Taiwanese foundries, Korean memory makers and Japanese equipment suppliers, and the research notes published since Thursday give the first detailed read on whether analysts expect that demand to change. So far, the answer is mostly no: the cuts reflect leadership risk and a higher discount rate, not weaker near-term chip orders.

Morningstar trims long-term forecasts

Brian Colello, a senior equity analyst at Morningstar, said in a note dated Nov. 13 that the firm reduced its long-term revenue forecasts and raised its cost of equity in its 10-year discounted cash flow model. It kept Nvidia's wide economic moat rating and its "Very High" uncertainty rating.

The note compared Nvidia to a racing car tuned around its driver. Colello wrote that "everything at Nvidia was tuned to support Huang when he had the wheel," and said it was unclear whether a new chief could manage product launches as well, keep partnerships intact and hold on to staff. Chief Financial Officer Colette Kress is serving as interim CEO while the board searches for a permanent replacement.

Morningstar also pointed to risks beyond the boardroom. It cited a report by The Information that a cloud provider was considering chips from Google or AMD, though it said such a shift was not guaranteed. It flagged a Semafor report of a U.S. Department of Justice investigation involving Nvidia, Supermicro and Megaspeed, and said it expects heavy scrutiny of Nvidia's international shipments. Morningstar named AMD as a possible big winner as the clear second-source supplier of AI graphics processors.

The cut followed a note three days earlier in which Morningstar held its estimate at $310 while the board investigation was still under way. In that Nov. 10 report, Colello wrote that Morningstar still viewed "AI as compute-constrained" and did not expect the news to mute near-term or medium-term revenue. He also warned, according to Stocktwits, that a Huang exit could mean less AI dealmaking and financing, greater regulation and more political backlash. Morningstar noted then that Huang owned about 3.6% of Nvidia and had no supervoting shares to protect his position.

Even after the cut, Morningstar's estimate sits about 50% above Nvidia's Thursday close of $166.19, by Capital Times' calculation. The firm kept a four-star rating on the stock.

RBC and others lower targets

RBC Capital Markets cut its price target to $230 from $330, the San Francisco Standard reported on Thursday. The new figure is about 38% above Thursday's close. Capital Times could not independently confirm notes from other large brokerages, including Morgan Stanley, Bank of America, Goldman Sachs, Bernstein or Jefferies, from sources available at the time of writing.

Not everyone on Wall Street read the exit as a blow to the business itself. Mark Malek, chief investment officer at Siebert Financial, said investors "may be confusing the value of Jensen Huang with the value of Nvidia," the San Francisco Standard reported.

The stock reflected that split. Nvidia fell as much as 14% to $148.80 early on Thursday before closing down 4.34%, as described in our report on the day's trading. About 747.7 million shares changed hands, more than double Wednesday's volume, and AMD closed up 5.86% at $585.30 and Broadcom gained 5.54% to $364.36, Nasdaq data showed.

Demand view holds before Nov. 17 results

The common thread in the notes is that analysts are separating governance risk from the order book. Morningstar said it still has little evidence of a pause in the AI buildout and expects Nvidia to beat its own forecasts and raise guidance when it reports fiscal third-quarter results on Nov. 17. It said existing gigawatt-scale partnerships should hold in the medium term and that neocloud, government and enterprise customers may prove even stickier.

That makes the earnings call the first test of the new leadership. Kress will lead the call as interim chief, with the board under Chair Harvey C. Jones still running the search for a successor. Our earnings preview sets out the numbers Wall Street will be watching.

The gap between the share price and analysts' targets is wide. Even RBC's reduced target and Morningstar's lower estimate imply gains of 38% to 50% from Thursday's close. Nvidia reports its results on Tuesday, Nov. 17.