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Nvidia is rebounding after biggest market cap loss in history, but it’s a fragile bounce

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Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang delivers a keynote address at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) 2025, showcasing the company’s latest innovations in Las Vegas, Nevada, USA, on January 6, 2025. 

Artur Widak | Anadolu | Getty Images

Nvidia shares traded higher in the premarket Tuesday, as traders reassessed the implications of a much cheaper-to-build large-language model for the artificial intelligence trade.

The chipmaker’s rebound in the early session was shaky, with it up about 3.7%. The stock’s bounce was much bigger earlier in the morning and was reducing as the open neared.

The stock plunged 17% on Monday and slashed more than $595 billion from the company’s valuation, the biggest single-day market cap decline on record.

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Monday’s steep sell-off — which sent shockwaves across the broader tech industry, with Nasdaq Composite dropping 3% —  came as traders grew fearful that an AI stock bubble could burst due to the emergence of Chinese startup DeepSeek.

DeepSeek last week released an open-source model that reportedly outperformed OpenAI’s in different tests. The company also said the initial version of this model cost less than $6 million to build — a fraction of the billions of dollars major U.S. tech companies are spending on AI.

To be sure, Nvidia — which has been the posterchild of the U.S. AI trade due to its high-powered chips  — called DeepSeek’s R1 model “an excellent AI advancement.”

“DeepSeek’s work illustrates how new models can be created using that technique, leveraging widely-available models and compute that is fully export control compliant,” an Nvidia spokesperson told CNBC on Monday.

Additionally, most Wall Street analysts stood by Nvidia after the sell-off, with none of them downgrading the stock thus far. Some also see the DeepSeek developments as a long-term positive for AI.

“We think investors need to differentiate between the impacts around potential benefits and drawbacks of DeepSeek for the software industry. More powerful LLM models that can run at a fraction of the original cost estimates (if confirmed) will mean that genAI adoption should come easier … and hence, faster and broader across the software universe,” wrote Barclays analyst Raimo Lenschow.

To be sure, while Morgan Stanley’s Joseph Moore kept his overweight rating on the stock, he did trim his price target to $152 from $166 on Tuesday.

“The DeepSeek release highlights evolutionary innovations in AI, some of which may be deflationary. That said, the stock market reaction is probably more important than the cause, and could bring further export controls or reduce spending enthusiasm; trimming PTs but remain positive,” he said.

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Insiders at UnitedHealth are scooping up tarnished shares

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Key Points

  • UnitedHealth Group saw some of its insiders step in and purchase declining shares this week.
  • Kristen Gil, a director at the firm, bought 3,700 shares worth roughly $1 million on Thursday.
  • Shares of UnitedHealth plunged nearly 11% to $274.35 on Thursday following a report in The Wall Street Journal that the Department of Justice is conducting a criminal investigation into possible Medicare fraud.

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Federal Reserve will reduce staff by 10% in coming years, Powell memo says

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U.S. Federal Reserve in Washington, DC, on January 30, 2024.

Mandel Ngan | Afp | Getty Images

The Federal Reserve will look to reduce its headcount by 10% over the next couple of years, including offering deferred resignation to some older employees, central bank chair Jerome Powell said in a memo.

“Experience here and elsewhere shows that it is healthy for any organization to periodically take a fresh look at its staffing and resources. The Fed has done that from time to time as our work, priorities, or external environment have changed,” Powell said in a memo obtained by CNBC.

The central bank chief added that he has instructed leaders throughout the Fed “to find incremental ways to consolidate functions where appropriate, modernize some business practices, and ensure that we are right-sized and able to meet our statutory mission.” One method for shrinking the staff will be to offer a voluntary deferred resignation program to employees of the Federal Reserve Board who would be fully eligible to retire at the end of 2027.

The central bank said in its 2023 annual report that it had just under 24,000 employees. A 10% reduction would bring that number below 22,000.

The memo comes as the Trump administration has pushed for cost cuts across civil service agencies, spearheaded by Elon Musk and the so-called Department of Government Efficiency. Musk has previously called the Fed “absurdly overstaffed.” Powell’s memo did not mention Musk or DOGE as a factor in the decision to shrink headcount.

The planned staff cuts were first reported by Bloomberg News.

— CNBC’s Matt Cuddy contributed reporting.

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Stocks making the biggest moves midday: AMAT, NVO, CAVA, VST

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