NQ Week Ahead (Nov 16–20, 2026): Nvidia Without Huang, the Anthropic IPO and Fed Minutes

Nvidia reports on Tuesday without Jensen Huang as chief executive for the first time in its history as a public company. He resigned on Thursday, effective immediately, and CFO Colette Kress became interim CEO while keeping the finance job, so the written commentary that comes out with the results at about 4:20 PM ET (22:20 CET) comes from the person now running the company. Two days later Anthropic is expected to start trading on Nasdaq, and the same week brings retail sales, a 20-year bond auction and the minutes of the Fed's October meeting.

NQ (E-mini Nasdaq-100 futures, December contract) goes into that week from Friday's settlement at 28,034.75, up 949.50 points, after five sessions that never left the range of the five before them.

An inside week that stalled under the 200-day

Last Sunday's map had a slow rebound as the base case, a long line at 27,250, a short line at 27,050 and a band from 26,875 down to 26,750 beneath them. The rebound came, just not slowly. Globex, CME's electronic market, reopened 206.75 points lower at 26,878.50, through both lines, and the low printed at 26,751.25: 1.25 points above the bottom of that band and three-quarters of a point under the November 5 settlement. Brent then fell 5.85% to $92.57 after Trump signaled restraint on Iran, and Monday ran 1,378 points from low to high, clearing 27,250 in the same session.

Tuesday, CPI day, traded back down to 27,516. Wednesday, after CoreWeave's results, reached the week's high at 28,697, and from there the highs stepped lower every day: 28,697, then 28,652.25, then 28,607.75. All three sessions traded above the 200-day moving average, 28,530 as of Friday, and all three settled below it. Thursday, the day Huang resigned, closed 88.75 points lower. Friday, PPI day, settled 349.75 lower at 28,034.75, 21 points above Thursday's low, and kept sliding after the 4:15 PM ET settlement to a last trade of 27,927.50.

The whole week, 26,751.25 to 28,697, fit inside the prior week's 26,366.50 to 28,969. After a 2,600-point week that is compression: both sides had a turn and neither reached the other's extreme. The VXN, Cboe's volatility index for the Nasdaq-100, closed Friday at 29.38, down from 34.02.

Levels for November 16–20

Rounded to 5 points, distances from Friday's 28,034.75 settlement. At a VXN of 29.38, options price a one-standard-deviation week of about 1,160 points either way, 26,875 to 29,195. The profile levels come from last week's volume profile: the point of control (POC) is the price where the most contracts traded, and the value area high and low (VAH, VAL) bound the range that held about 70% of the volume. The key levels post shows how each is built. Percent lines are measured from the October 6 record of 31,616.50.

Friday settled just under resistance at 28,050, in the cluster where Monday also settled and Thursday's low held, and then finished the session on last week's POC. At the bottom of the ladder, the edge of this week's VXN range lands about half a point from the 15% line, two unrelated measures in one place.

Nvidia, 40 minutes before the halt

The timing on Tuesday is unusual for NQ. Nvidia's results arrive at about 4:20 PM ET and the call begins at 5:00 PM ET, the minute CME equity index futures stop for their daily one-hour maintenance break. NQ gets roughly 40 minutes to price the numbers and Kress's written commentary, sits dark through the call, and reopens at 6:00 PM ET, midnight in Central Europe, with whatever the call added already in the first print. From Europe, the full reaction is Wednesday morning's problem.

Consensus compiled by MarketBeat is revenue of $108.8 billion and earnings of $2.47 a share for the quarter that ended October 25. The stock closed down more than 4% on Thursday, CNBC reported, slipped another 2% on Friday and ended the week more than 25% below its level a month earlier, so the headline numbers may count for less than what management says about orders, and whether the board's expectation that operations continue "without interruption" holds up on the call. How far one stock can move NQ comes down to its index weight; if that's new to you, the Nasdaq-100 weights post has the arithmetic.

Anthropic's listing is the week's second AI read. Its amended filing offers 825 million shares at $70 to $78, with pricing expected on Wednesday and trading on Thursday under the ticker ANT, subject to regulatory clearance.

The rest of the week, in ET and CET

Both sides of the Atlantic are on standard time, six hours apart. The economic calendar has the full list; these are the events I've marked.

Rates after CPI and PPI

October CPI rose 0.4% for the month against 0.3% expected, and core rose 0.3% against 0.2%. There was no annual rate, because the 2025 shutdown left the BLS without October 2025 prices to compare with. Before the release, the Fed's Christopher Waller had said a half-point hike should be considered in December if core came in around 0.3% or higher; unrounded, it was 0.296%. That afternoon the Treasury sold $42 billion of 10-year notes at 5.02%, a basis point above the yield traded just before the auction. Friday's PPI eased to 0.3% for the month against 0.4% expected, while the annual rate rose to 6.5%, the highest since November 2022.

Fed funds futures started last week pricing about 84% for a quarter-point hike on December 9. After Friday's PPI, CME's FedWatch showed about 90% for a quarter point and 10% for a half point, so a December hike is now fully priced. Wednesday's minutes cover the October 27–28 meeting, where the Fed held at 3.75% to 4.00% in a 10–2 vote, with Governor Lisa Cook and Cleveland's Beth Hammack voting for a hike. That meeting came before the October jobs report, CPI and PPI, which makes Hammack's appearances on Tuesday and Thursday the fresher signal. PCE waits until Wednesday, November 25, the day before Thanksgiving.

How I'm approaching it

Friday's last trade, 27,927.50, sits under resistance at 28,050, and Friday already showed sellers, a drop from 28,608 to 27,695 in one session. My bias for the start of the week is lower first. If 28,050 rejects again, the first stop on my map is 27,665, a level that held as support on November 4 and again on November 10, and it sits inside the band between last week's VAL and Friday's low. Lose that and I'd expect tests of the lows below: Tuesday's 27,516 first, then the base NQ built on November 6 and 9, with 27,240 at its top and 26,955 at its bottom, and Monday's 26,751 low underneath.

The higher-timeframe picture leans the same way. Three sessions above the 200-day without a single settlement above it reads to me like selling into strength, and the 20-day average is now only about 200 points above the 200-day on the December contract. On the way down, I care more about how price behaves under each level than about the level itself. A break below 27,665 that gets reclaimed in the same session says sellers ran out; trade that holds and builds underneath says the move has further to go.

Higher prices are still very possible. If buyers keep the momentum from Monday and Wednesday, the next attempt is the ceiling around 28,620 that held them off on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. Three days of failing there make it the biggest resistance on the chart, which is why I expect the pullback before the push. For that read to change, I'd want a settlement above the ceiling, which would also put NQ back over its 200-day, and value building up there rather than a one-hour poke through it.

Before any of that comes the reopen on Sunday at 6:00 PM ET, midnight in Central Europe. A gap down from Friday's 27,927.50 would bring the 27,665 test forward and make me more negative for the week, and whatever happens over the weekend shows up in that first print. Tuesday night is the other jump risk: the Nvidia reaction comes in two pieces, 40 minutes before the halt and a reopen at midnight CET, and an open beyond one of these bands is a real possibility.

The 14-day average true range (ATR), the typical daily range including overnight gaps, is 814 points on the December contract, or $1,628 per MNQ contract. Last week's sessions averaged 874 points from high to low, with Monday at 1,378. That's the number I hold a stop distance against before choosing size, and the NQ volatility post covers why a fixed stop can't keep up with weeks like this. I'm flat before the 8:30 AM ET releases on Monday, Tuesday and Thursday, which is 14:30 where I trade.