Fed Hike: Buy, Sell Or Hold Nvidia Stock? Trefis Team Thu, November 12, 2026 at 4:42 AM EST 4 min read NVDA -6.34% ^GSPC +1.31% SPY -0.38% QQQ -0.80% Explore stocks on Coinbase Trading disclosure Trading disclosure The above button links to Coinbase. Yahoo Finance is not a broker-dealer or investment adviser and does not offer securities or cryptocurrencies for sale or facilitate trading. Coinbase pays us for certain activity generated through this link. Prices displayed are informational.
More on inflation and the market: Inflation Is Back. Is A Stock Market Crash Next?
The alert lands on your phone just after breakfast: inflation ran hotter than expected. By lunch the 401(k) app is red, and the stock you check first is the one everyone owns. Nvidia fell 5.5% on Tuesday, the day of the report, then closed Wednesday at $173.73, 27% below its 52-week high and 24% lower than a month ago.
Most of Tuesday's fall was Nvidia's own: its board is investigating CEO Jensen Huang. The S&P 500 fell just 0.4% on Tuesday. Then on Wednesday evening, The Wall Street Journal reported the board was preparing to oust him. Inflation is the other weight. October consumer prices rose 0.4% against 0.3% expected, and core prices rose 0.3% against 0.2%. The 10-year Treasury yield rose to 4.98%, and Fed Governor Christopher Waller said he is leaning toward a December hike, leaving the door open to a half-point move. Higher rates make future profits worth less today, and growth stocks like Nvidia are priced on future profits. So we measured every one of the 37 Fed hikes from 2004 to 2023. In the year after each, Nvidia's typical worst fall was 12%. Four times, it fell more than half: 53.9% after the first hike of 2004 and 54.1% after the first of 2022.
That 54% is the one to plan for. For families with seven figures invested, Nvidia can be 5-10% once index funds count: a repeat costs about 3-5% of everything. Would your plan hold? Check it in a free 15-minute call with a Trefis partner firm.
Rate hikes hurt growth stocks, and 2022 proved it: the Fed started raising rates in March, and Nvidia lost more than half its value within the year. That's true. It's also one hike out of 37.
The first hike of each cycle was the rough one. Here are the three, against the median of all 37:
"Worst dip" is the deepest fall from the hike-day close within 12 months. The S&P 500 was higher a year later after 34 of 37 hikes, by a median 14.2%; Nvidia after 33 of 37. All figures include dividends. The 37 hikes fall in three cycles (2004-06, 2015-18 and 2022-23), so they are not 37 independent tests.
The hikes didn't cause Nvidia's gains; its business did. What the hikes did was test whether owners could sit through the drop. Where you hold the money mattered too:
Utilities were the steadiest after the first hikes: their worst dips were 1.2%, 1.1% and 11.6%. Regional banks were the weakest of anything we measured.
Size from the worst case. If a 54% fall in Nvidia would make you sell, the position is too big. Count the Nvidia inside your index funds too; we showed how in How Much Nvidia Do You Really Own?
Write down a commitment price. Decide the price at which you'd add, before the market offers it.
Rebalance by rule. Set a band (say, target weight plus or minus 2 points) and trim or add only when Nvidia leaves it.
Skip the reactive move. Selling the morning after a hot inflation print. On hike days the S&P 500 rose 19 times out of 37, and the first day told you little about the year.
Watch: what Nvidia's board decides about Huang; Nvidia's results on Tuesday, November 17, after the close; and the Fed's decision on Wednesday, December 9.
As we argued in October, inflation has had three fuels, war, immigration and taxes, and AI is becoming a fourth: data centers bid up power, chips and construction. In that reading, the stock leading AI pays for the rates its own boom helps push up. A hike doesn't have to sink stocks: the S&P 500 was higher a year later after 34 of 37 hikes. The years that hurt were the ones investors weren't sized for.
"You make money by not losing money." - Anonymous
Follow this story with us: we'll add the December decision and Nvidia's report to the table as they land.
Rate hikes change the odds, not your plan. If you have $1 million or more invested, get a second opinion on yours in a free 15-minute call with a Trefis partner firm.
For questions about this article or underlying research, email help@trefis.com.
