Nvidia’s CEO Stepped Down. Retail Bought a Record $111M at the Open.
Retail investors met Jensen Huang’s resignation with the biggest opening bid for Nvidia we have ever recorded.
In the first 30 minutes of trading on 12 November, they bought a net $111 million of Nvidia (NVDA) shares, more than 40 times a typical open, according to VandaTrack retail flow data.
Bloomberg, The Wall Street Journal and the Financial Times cited Vanda’s data on the record opening surge. Our latest figures put that buying in context: retail had been building its Nvidia exposure throughout the sell-off.
Beyond the opening surge
Net retail purchases reached $473.8 million by the close. From Monday to Wednesday, Nvidia had already attracted 61% of all net retail buying across US stocks and ETFs.
Across the rolling five-day window, demand was unusually strong even by Nvidia’s own standards:
|
VandaTrack metric |
Five trading days ending 12 Nov |
|
Net retail purchases |
$1.86 billion |
|
Net flow percentile vs Nvidia’s own history |
99th |
|
Share of aggregate market net retail inflows |
34.1% |
Demand extended to leveraged funds
Retail buying also reached products offering amplified Nvidia exposure.
Six 2x leveraged long NVDA ETFs attracted $42.5 million in net buying from Monday to Wednesday, their fifth-largest three-day total on record, as The Wall Street Journal reported. Inverse Nvidia funds saw no net buying over that period.
The direction of demand was clear: retail was adding exposure to a rebound.
Strong buying, falling prices
Nvidia fell 8.6% over the five-day window, despite those inflows.
That divergence matters. Retail was accumulating shares while the broader market continued to mark the stock lower. Strong buying identifies a source of demand; it does not establish a price floor or reveal institutional positioning.
There is a precedent. During the DeepSeek sell-off in January 2025, Vanda recorded a then-record $562 million in full-day net retail buying. Both shocks drew substantial retail demand. The next question is whether the latest buying persists, and whether Nvidia’s price begins to stabilise alongside it.
