Morning Coffee: Ex-banker's apparent willingness to tolerate wife's affair was a catalyst. “This is a tougher environment than Covid and the global financial crisis”

It's clear who is to blame for NVIDIA's immediate woes: Jensen Huang. Before resigning yesterday, Huang was reportedly going about describing himself as a "piece of sh*t," and saying "whatever" and "I don't care."

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Huang does indeed appear to have some sh*tty behaviours. Aside from the affairs, the Wall Street Journal is reporting that Huang had a line in belittling women during meetings. It claims that he specifically belittled Collette Kress, the CFO now replacing him as CEO. Last August, Huang is said to have called Kress a "reporting CFO", not someone able to drive strategy, and to have interrupted a presentation she was making to accuse her of being "a deer in the headlights."

With NVIDIA's share price down 27% over the past month and NVIDIA's board scrabbling to contain the situation, Huang's affair with alleged Chinese spy Alice Huang, has been the catalyst for revelations about Huang's conduct. So has his alleged affair with Kimberly Powell, NVIDIA's vice president of healthcare and maybe with another NVIDIA employee too. 

At least one of the affairs might not have happened, though, had the husband of the woman involved not allegedly been semi-complicit. 

The Wall Street Journal is suggesting that Alice Huang's husband, Kang Wei, knew about Huang's affair with his wife because he introduced them. Wei would half-jokingly refer to his wife as being Jensen Huang's personal assistant, says the WSJ. However, the WSJ was unable to confirm this with Wei himself. 

Kang Wei has a financial services background. Before jumping on the data centre bandwagon with his attractive wife, he worked in private equity in Shanghai. Before he worked in private equity in Shaghai, he was reportedly a private banker at HSBC and worked for CITIC Securities. The WSJ suggests Kang and Alice were networking together and 'capitalizing on whatever connections were at hand.' Jensen Huang at NVIDA appears to have been one such opportunity.

This is one way to get ahead. Others working in financial services may be sympathetic - the Wall Street Discriminates site is full of female complaints about workplace affairs, including affairs in which women use their influence for personal gain. One senior hedge fund manager wrote on LinkedIn that, "He [Huang] can have any woman and he knows it. Even if his wife dumps him, there will be a long queue of women. He simply got caught because of US surveillance."

Nvidia's issues could be far deeper than its philandering ex-CEO. Michael Burry, who has long been shorting the chipmaker, notes that the WSJ says Jensen Huang called the meeting in August because of a 'ballooning problem:' 'Nvidia was in talks to provide billions of dollars of guarantees to companies that couldn’t afford its chips.' 

Having affairs, including with a woman in an apparently open marriage, may turn out to be immaterial compared to what eventually transpires. 

Separately, these are complicated times. They may even be the most complicated times yet. 

Speaking to Bloomberg, one macro fund manager said: “This is a tougher environment than during the Covid pandemic and the global financial crisis.” Unpredictability is the issue: "It’s about rolling supply shocks and wild rates volatility. We still have to be on alert for higher yields all the way till year end.” 

Many portfolio managers have already found themselves on the wrong side of recent volatility. Funds are still hiring though, including at very senior levels. 

Meanwhile...

Citadel macro PM Kevin Storey left in 2022 to found a healthcare company. Now he's returned. (X) 

IMC trading plans to double its headcount in Hong Kong. “Once we started hiring, we found strong people across options, ETFs and futures, alongside systematic equities. So Hong Kong now hires for all of them.” (Bloomberg) 

Adrian Bracher left UBS and joined RBC Capital Markets as global head of macro and spread products structuring. (Fi-Desk) 

Marex hired three directors for its cash equities business in Paris. (The Trade News)

Scott Bessent is now living on a miltary base after threats to his life connected to Iran. (WSJ) 

Christopher Woolcott owned shares in Touchstone Exploration and he wanted them to higher so he concocted a fake bid for it using AI. He even met Paul Baay, the Touchstone chief executive, at a central London hotel, when he pretended to be a representative of the fake bidder and adopted an American accent. (The Times) 

UBS banker: "The moment to step away has arrived...The circumstances surrounding that transition were not entirely of my choosing, but what I do with the opportunity now before me is increasingly mine to determine." (Sean Cochran) 

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