How Nvidia's stock decline could impact your 401(k) and portfolio Brooke DiPalma · Senior Reporter Fri, November 13, 2026 at 1:19 PM EST 2 min read NVDA -2.77% Trade NVIDIA 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.
Americans have likely been taking a second glance at their 401(k)s and portfolios as Nvidia (NVDA) stock has experienced turbulence over CEO Jensen Huang's resignation.
Shares of Nvidia, a company co-founded by Huang in 1993 that has become the backbone of the AI build-out, are down more than 30% over the past month. The stock fell from a record high in early October, when Nvidia had a market cap of roughly $5.8 trillion, losing approximately $2 trillion in market value.
Even if you don't own Nvidia shares, you might still be exposed to the stock.
Retirement plans like 401(k)s, IRAs, or public pension funds often invest in index funds. When a heavily weighted stock within one of those indexes has a bad day, so can your investments, Mattie Duppler said in her Substack Forward Strategies.
Nvidia has a less-than-6% weighting in the S&P 500 (^GSPC), so if an investor's 401(k) holds an S&P 500 index fund or a S&P 500 target-date fund, they will face some exposure.
Read more: What the AI stock crash cost your 401(k) for every $1,000 invested
You might also be exposed to the stock through market cap-weighted ETFs like the QQQ (QQQ) or SPY (SPY), which similarly track major indexes.
"Nvidia is such a big part of the market, and they're part of that 'Mag Seven' trade, which is overweight in market cap-weighted ETFs like the QQQ or the SPY," Kelly Intelligence CEO Kevin Kelly said at Yahoo Finance Invest.
Still, Kelly noted that investors in those ETFs remain "well diversified."
"If you go into a QQQ, that has Alphabet … Microsoft — it's got other names that are very well diversified," he said. "I mean, think about Amazon. Amazon has their e-commerce platform. They've got their entertainment platform, they've got AWS …. you're still OK."
He also noted that while investors should buckle up for some volatility, they shouldn't worry too much.
"I wouldn't be overly worried. I think right here, you know, this too shall pass," Kelly said. "If you think about Nvidia and where they are … they're a huge company with a deep bench. They're systemically important to AI, especially when it comes to semiconductors. They've done very well over the years. They kind of created this space."
Brooke DiPalma is a reporter for Yahoo Finance. Follow her on X at @BrookeDiPalma or email her at bdipalma@yahoofinance.com.
