Nvidia's Problem Reached the Company | Waller Moved Before the Data | Brent Broke $90, Then Bounced | MARA Sold 40% of Its Bitcoin

Nvidia's problem stopped being about one man on Monday.

A shareholder filed a proposed securities class action against Nvidia (NVDA) and Jensen Huang in San Jose. It targets the company's own statements that Huang's dealings with a Megaspeed executive were routine. President Trump said the FBI is looking into the matter, and added that he believes Huang.

Then the trail reached the company. A Commerce inquiry into Megaspeed, a Singapore buyer of about $2 billion of Nvidia gear, moved to the Justice Department after Nvidia's top lawyer contacted investigators, a report said. It moved late last year and remains a criminal case. Megaspeed denies wrongdoing, and Nvidia denies pressuring investigators.

The demand data said otherwise. TSMC (TSM) posted record October revenue of NT$586.9 billion, up 59.7% from a year earlier. TSMC and Nvidia were little changed before the open.

Huang owes House committee chairs a reply Wednesday, and CoreWeave (CRWV) reports after the close.

The Signal

The AI build-out is still printing records. What changed is where Nvidia's risk sits, now in a criminal case touching a customer and in how the company dealt with regulators. The business looks intact. Nvidia's Nov. 17 earnings report will test whether investors can separate the two.

Trump called the war militarily over. The blockade stayed.

President Trump said he would hold off new strikes on Iran for now and keep the naval blockade of Hormuz in place. Brent slipped below $90 overnight for the first time since late August, then bounced to near $91.

The barrels told their own story. Saudi Arabia cut its December price for Arab Light to Asia to a $6.50 discount to the regional benchmark, the deepest since May 2020. Sellers don't discount a scarce product.

Polymarket's contract on an effective U.S.-Iran ceasefire by Nov. 30 rose 5 points to 64.5 cents. Rep. Thomas Massie filed eight impeachment articles against Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, three of them over the Iran war, and traders split the outcome. Impeachment by year-end rose to about 78 cents. Hegseth leaving by Nov. 30 fell to 18.5 cents.

Energy Signal

Gulf sellers are cutting prices while the blockade holds, which reads as supply, not peace. Traders now price a ceasefire and an impeachment as more likely than not, and Hegseth staying anyway. The barrel is pricing what flows, not what is promised.

A Fed governor called December before the data could.

Governor Christopher Waller said he would back a quarter-point hike in December even if October inflation improves. If core prices rise 0.3% or more, he said a half-point move "should be considered." "Hiking only 25 basis points would put our credibility at risk," he added.

Kalshi's December hike contract jumped from 81 cents to as high as 90 cents within minutes of the remarks, then settled near 87.

The market had already stopped listening to oil. On Monday, Brent fell nearly 6%, and the two-year Treasury yield rose 5 basis points anyway.

October's consumer price report lands this morning, the last before the Dec. 8-9 meeting. Forecasts call for 0.3% monthly growth in headline prices and 0.2% in core. Most indexes will carry no 12-month rate, a gap left by last year's shutdown.

Macro Signal

Cheaper oil has not bought cheaper money. Waller set his floor at a quarter point before the data arrived, so for him a soft print settles only the size. A 0.3% core reading turns December into a half-point debate.

Private money set prices this week, and refused to stretch them.

GFL Environmental's (GFL) board rejected a $52-a-share take-private from Blackstone (BX), KKR (KKR) and Energy Capital Partners, a report said, ending its review without a sale. The bid was about 13% above Monday's $45.88 close. The board wanted $58 or more, and three firms with deep pools of capital would not close a $6 gap.

Where banks stalled, direct lenders stepped in. Private credit funds are in talks on a $1.3 billion loan for the Fullscript buyout after banks led by Morgan Stanley (MS) struggled to sell it, a report said.

SoftBank's Tokyo shares closed 13.9% higher, then it reported a quarterly loss of about ¥1.1 trillion. Its OpenAI stake stayed at $99.6 billion, unchanged since March.

Capital Signal

Sponsors kept their discipline on control and their appetite for credit. Lenders are taking loans banks can't place, while buyers refuse to pay up for whole companies. At SoftBank, the biggest private mark held still and the costs did not.

Bitcoin's corporate bid is thinning.

MARA (MARA) sold 13,597 bitcoin after the third quarter ended, about 40% of its Sept. 30 holdings, for about $1.1 billion, at about $81,039 a coin. It used $750 million to repay all of its bitcoin-backed loans and expects to keep selling to fund AI projects and a buyback of up to $500 million.

Strategy (MSTR), the largest holder, spent 2.3 times as much last week buying back its preferred stock as it spent on coins. Bitcoin traded near $74,300, about 1.5% below Strategy's $75,456 average cost. MSCI decides Wednesday whether Strategy stays in its indexes.

The fund bid is gone too. U.S. spot bitcoin funds lost $201 million Monday, and the iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT) had its seventh straight day of withdrawals, $1.66 billion since Oct. 30. This year's flows sit near minus $1.1 billion, against about plus $25 billion at this point in 2024 and 2025. Ether funds lost about $185 million, and ether traded near $2,090.

The Verdict

A miner that held its coins is now supplying them. MARA is selling, Strategy is putting more into its own paper than into bitcoin, and the funds are net sellers for the year. Bitcoin heads into CPI and MSCI without the bid of the past two years.

The AI build-out printed a record while Nvidia's legal exposure widened.

Gulf sellers cut prices while the blockade held.

Waller set a floor before the data spoke.

Bitcoin lost its corporate and fund bid.

CPI lands this morning, and MSCI rules on Strategy Wednesday, the same day Huang owes Congress a reply.

Tuesday pays for what flows and marks down what's promised.