On Tuesday local time, the U.S. stock market showed a "two extremes" situation, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average reaching a new all-time high, while AI technology stocks collectively declined, dragging down the Nasdaq. At the close of trading, the Dow rose 1.18%, closing at 47927.96 points; the Nasdaq fell 0.25%, closing at 23468.30 points; and the S&P 500 index rose 0.21%, closing at 6846.61 points.

The U.S. AI technology stocks faced selling by investors. Among them, NVIDIA fell nearly 3%, and the company's market value was erased by 143.127 billion U.S. dollars overnight, with the direct trigger being the Japanese well-known technology investment company SoftBank Group's liquidation of its NVIDIA shares.

On November 11, SoftBank Group announced that it had sold all of its NVIDIA shares for 5.83 billion U.S. dollars (approximately 41.5 billion Chinese yuan) in October.

SoftBank CFO Hoshino Yoshihisa said at an investor briefing: "We hope to provide investors with a large number of investment opportunities while still maintaining financial strength."

He said that they would ensure that funds are prepared for investments in a very safe manner, and the sale of these shares is part of the company's "asset monetization" strategy.

SoftBank stock price movement

Due to the fear of an "AI bubble," SoftBank's stock price dropped in the previous week. Hoshino said, "Our stock price has been volatile recently... We hope to provide as many investment opportunities as possible."

After the announcement of SoftBank's sale of NVIDIA shares, NVIDIA's stock price fell 0.95% in pre-market trading on November 11.

Stock research analyst Rolf Barker analyzed for CNBC that SoftBank's sale should not be seen as a cautious or negative attitude toward NVIDIA, but should be viewed in the context of SoftBank's funding needs. From October to December 2025, SoftBank needs to raise at least 30.5 billion U.S. dollars in investment capital, of which 22.5 billion U.S. dollars is for OpenAI and 6.5 billion U.S. dollars is for Ampere. The amount for this quarter alone exceeds the total of the past two years of investments.

Dan Baker, an analyst from the investment research institution Morningstar, believes that this move does not represent a fundamental shift in SoftBank's strategy. He stated that SoftBank specifically emphasized that the sale of shares does not imply any opinion on NVIDIA. SoftBank is using this money to invest in other AI-related companies.

According to a report by the American Consumer News and Business Channel (CNBC), although SoftBank's sale of NVIDIA shares may have surprised some investors, it is not the first time that SoftBank has cashed out its NVIDIA shares. SoftBank Vision Fund was an early investor in NVIDIA, holding a total of 4 billion U.S. dollars worth of shares in 2017, and then sold all of them in January 2019.

Despite this latest sale, SoftBank's business interests remain closely intertwined with NVIDIA. SoftBank has participated in multiple AI projects that rely on NVIDIA technology, including the "Interstellar Gate" project.

SoftBank Vision Fund has been actively investing in the field of artificial intelligence, making investments and acquisitions across the entire AI value chain, from chips, large language models to robot technology.

A company official told the Associated Press that SoftBank's performance often fluctuates due to diversified investments, but in this quarterly report, investment in Open AI became the main source of profit.

SoftBank's performance information shows that in the first half of the fiscal year (April to September), the company's consolidated net profit increased by 1.9 times year-on-year, reaching 2.9 trillion yen (approximately 133.8 billion Chinese yuan), setting a record for the highest net profit in the first half of the fiscal year. Its sales increased by 7.7%, reaching 3.7 trillion yen (approximately 170.8 billion Chinese yuan).

SoftBank CFO Hoshino said that the reason for achieving the results shown in the financial report is because of its initial investment in OpenAI in September last year.

Reuters quoted sources saying that despite the continued sharp rise in OpenAI's valuation, its losses are also expanding rapidly.

Capital markets have also shown concerns about the "AI bubble." On October 29, NVIDIA became the first company to reach a market value of 5 trillion U.S. dollars. This milestone of exceeding 5 trillion U.S. dollars came just three months after NVIDIA crossed the 4 trillion U.S. dollar threshold. Analysts say that the rise in NVIDIA's stock price reflects investors' continued confidence in the artificial intelligence sector, but some people have warned that its valuation may already be at a high level.

Matthew Tatter, CEO of Tatter Capital Management, pointed out: "The current expansion of artificial intelligence relies on a few dominant companies providing funding support for each other's capacity. Once investors start demanding cash flow returns rather than being satisfied with capacity expansion, some parts of these virtuous cycles may stagnate."

Some analysts believe that leading companies investing huge amounts in capital expenditures may not generate profits commensurate with their investments, making it difficult to justify the rationale behind these investments.

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