Nvidia Slides 5.5% to $168.89 as Its Independent Directors Hire a Former Federal Prosecutor Ahead of Earnings

The review follows reports in The New York Times and the Financial Times that Huang was the target of a foreign intelligence effort. Those reports, which no agency has publicly confirmed, are covered in our report on the political fallout.

How big is the share price damage?

On Monday, the Associated Press reported that Nvidia fell about 8 percent at the opening bell, to $172.37, after hitting an all-time high last month. Dan Ives of Yorkville Ives & Co. told the AP that the board's investigation will remain an overhang on the shares in the near term, though he saw only a small chance that Huang would be removed. HeyGoTrade, citing NBC News, said the stock had lost more than 10 percent since Monday's open, wiping out nearly $500 billion of market value.

Not all of Tuesday's move was Nvidia-specific. The summary said the Nasdaq fell 0.74 percent and the S&P 500 0.38 percent, while AMD gained 1.3 percent and Broadcom 3.91 percent, and it cited the Motley Fool as linking the wider decline to hotter-than-expected inflation data.

What will Nvidia's earnings on 17 November need to address?

The company reports results for its fiscal third quarter, which ended on 25 October, on Tuesday 17 November, a day before Congress has asked Huang to appear for a closed-door briefing. Fortune noted that Nvidia said in October that diversion allegations involving its customer Megaspeed had been thoroughly investigated and debunked, and that federal prosecutors have separately charged Super Micro's co-founder over an alleged scheme to route Nvidia-based servers to China. The indictment does not accuse Nvidia of wrongdoing, according to Fortune, and the co-founder has pleaded not guilty.

On the numbers, China was about 8 percent of revenue in the latest quarter, CNBC reported. Analysts will want to hear that figure again, and to hear how the board's review is expected to run.