Why a 90¢ bet on Jensen Huang’s exit paid zero
How Kalshi’s midnight cutoff settled the Jensen Huang trade, and what Polymarket prices say about NVIDIA, Apple and the race for the top spot.
This week’s PF Weekly found it hard to ignore what was happening at NVIDIA. Jensen Huang resigned, and finance chief Colette Kress took over while the board looks for a permanent CEO. The trade that caught our eye was Kalshi’s “Before Nov 12, 2026” contract.
A Yes share paid $1 only if Huang had left as CEO and his departure had been announced by the end of Wednesday, 11 November, Eastern time. Yes traded as high as 90¢ that night. It paid zero.
The market put a deadline on the news
At 9:11 p.m. ET on Wednesday, buyers on Kalshi paid about $12,870 for 15,500 Yes shares on that midnight deadline in seven seconds, at prices from 78¢ to 90¢. The price was back near 50¢ within half a minute. By midnight it was down to 1¢. Kalshi’s separate contract on an exit by year-end was still at 83¢.
The final hour was the busiest for the midnight contract. Some 2.38 million contracts changed hands. Open interest, the number of contracts still outstanding, rose from 2.95 million to 4.14 million even as the Yes price fell.
NVIDIA’s SEC filing says the board accepted Huang’s resignation on Wednesday, effective immediately. The company announced it at 8:48 a.m. ET on Thursday, after Kalshi’s cutoff. Polymarket’s “by November 12” contract included Thursday, so its Yes shares paid $1.
Kalshi’s two earliest deadlines accounted for 11.24 million of the 19.84 million contracts traded on Huang’s exit, or 57%. On Polymarket, the first two deadlines drew $13.18 million of the $22.73 million in reported volume, or 58%.
Apple had already taken the lead
On Polymarket, NVIDIA’s price to finish 2026 as the world’s most valuable company fell from 64¢ on 3 November to 22¢ by Wednesday’s stock-market close, then to 11¢ by Thursday’s close. Apple went from about 35¢ to 86¢ over the same stretch. Roughly four-fifths of NVIDIA’s drop in that contract had happened before the resignation announcement. Investors were already questioning how the AI buildout would be financed.
For December 2027, I’d start with the gap in market value. Apple ended Thursday at about $5.16 trillion and NVIDIA at $4.01 trillion. If Apple stays flat, NVIDIA needs to gain about 29% to draw level. If Apple gains 10%, NVIDIA needs about 42%. If Apple loses 10%, NVIDIA needs about 16%. That cushion makes Apple my starting favourite for 2027. Microsoft ended Thursday only about 3% behind NVIDIA, so the race could get tighter from behind as well.
Who takes over at NVIDIA?
NVIDIA executive Ian Buck led the permanent CEO markets on Kalshi and Polymarket at about 30% in the Friday snapshots we checked. Kalshi put the chance of a permanent appointment being announced at about one in five before 1 January and close to two in three before 1 February. Kress is already running the company, and 17 November will be NVIDIA’s first earnings call with her as interim CEO.
Back in August, NVIDIA guided to $108 billion in quarterly revenue and gave a preliminary outlook for roughly 70% revenue growth in fiscal 2028, which covers most of calendar 2027. I’ll be listening for whether Kress still expects that pace of growth and whether shipments of its new Vera Rubin systems are on schedule.
The succession market gives us a read on who might lead NVIDIA next. Tuesday’s call gives us the first chance to see whether the business is still on course to close the gap with Apple.
Related reading. How prediction markets traded the 2026 US midterms.