After the market closed on August 26th Eastern Time, Nvidia released its Q2 FY2027 earnings report for the period ending July 26, 2026, and the numbers once again blew past Wall Street’s expectations by a wide margin.
During the subsequent earnings call, when a Goldman Sachs analyst pressed Huang on which bottleneck—data center power, facility space, DRAM, or wafer foundry capacity—was currently the most severe constraint on Nvidia’s ability to meet customer demand, the founder and CEO didn’t rank them directly. Instead, he quipped: “One of the most interesting things over the past year has been figuring out where I go for dinner and who I have dinner with, because the next day their stock price doubles.”
Huang’s joke wasn’t just empty talk. Over the past year, his schedule—especially which listed company executives he dines with and which companies he visits—has become a hotly pursued “alternative investment signal” in capital markets. Any company rumored to have struck a partnership with Nvidia, entered its supply chain, or even simply had direct contact with Huang himself often sees its stock price surge dramatically in a short period.
The market has cheekily dubbed this the “Huang Effect,” and it’s played out repeatedly. Over the past year, he’s publicly dined or met with SK Group Chairman Chey Tae-won, LG Group Chairman Koo Kwang-mo, Naver Chairman Lee Hae-jin, Samsung Electronics Chairman Lee Jae-yong, and Hyundai Motor Executive Chairman Chung Eui-sun, among other industry titans. Nearly every meal or visit has triggered an immediate reaction in the capital markets.
The most iconic example was the “fried chicken dinner” that sent South Korean stocks into a frenzy in late October 2025. On October 30, 2025, Huang—in Seoul for APEC-related events—showed up at a popular fried chicken joint called KkanbuChicken alongside Samsung Electronics Chairman Lee Jae-yong and Hyundai Motor Group Chairman Chung Eui-sun. Photos and videos of the three global corporate titans sitting around a table with beer and fried chicken went viral across social media. Although KkanbuChicken itself isn’t publicly listed, this seemingly casual private dinner triggered an unexpected wave of limit-up moves across the Korean stock market the very next day.
Kyochon, a fried chicken chain seen as a competitor to the restaurant where Huang dined, saw its shares spike as much as 20% intraday. Poultry processor Cherrybro hit the daily limit-up directly, closing at the 30% ceiling with trading volume exploding roughly 200-fold from prior levels. Even fried chicken robot maker Neuromeka and other related plays rallied hard. By rough estimates, that single fried chicken dinner added about $25 billion to the total market cap of related Korean concept stocks the following day.
Then there was the late January dinner in Taipei at the Brick Kiln Old-Flavored Restaurant, where Huang played host to core AI supply chain partners. Before the formal meal began, the group posed for a group photo that industry insiders have since called “the most influential photo in the world.” In the shot, Huang sits front and center, flanked on his right by TSMC Chairman Wei Che-chia, MediaTek CEO Rick Tsai, and ASUS Chairman Jonney Shih, and on his left by Quanta Chairman Barry Lam, Quanta Vice Chairman C.C. Leung, and Wistron Chairman Simon Lin. Foxconn Chairman Young Liu and Pegatron Chairman T.H. Tung stand in the second row.
According to estimates, the combined market cap of the two dozen-plus companies in that photo exceeds NT$1 trillion—hence the name “Trillion-Dollar Feast.” On the first trading day after the photo leaked, Taiwan’s AI supply chain sector erupted collectively. TSMC surged NT$75 in a single day, while eight related stocks including Foxconn and Quanta posted hefty gains.
The most recent instance came on June 5 this year, when Huang, during a visit to South Korea, raised glasses with SK Group (parent of SK Hynix) Chairman Chey Tae-won, LG Group Chairman Koo Kwang-mo, and Naver Chairman Lee Hae-jin at a Korean BBQ spot in Hongdae, Seoul. After the meal, they moved on to fried chicken and beer, and simultaneously announced a South Korean physical AI collaboration project. After the two sides unveiled their comprehensive AI infrastructure cooperation agreement, Naver’s stock jumped 9.2% in a single day to 279,000 won.
LG Group stocks started rioting as soon as news broke that Huang would be meeting LG Group Chairman Koo Kwang-mo. On June 1, LG Electronics shares hit the 30% daily limit-up for a second consecutive trading day, bringing its year-to-date gains to over 300%. LG CNS climbed as much as 29% in a single session, LG Corp. rose 26%, LG Innotek gained 23%, and LG Uplus added 17%, with multiple stocks hitting all-time highs.
Huang’s trips to China have followed the same script, again and again. On January 25 this year, Huang met and posed for a photo with Zhu Yanhui, head of Henan-based Super Diamond, in Beijing. Just three days later, Super Diamond officially announced that its self-developed diamond-copper composite material had passed Nvidia’s supply chain validation. By February, Nvidia formally told the world that its next-generation architecture GPUs would fully adopt diamond composite cooling solutions. A little-known materials company from Henan suddenly became the center of attention in capital markets, all because of one meeting and one photo with Jensen Huang.
The root of the Huang dinner effect lies in Nvidia’s near-monopolistic dominance in the AI era. According to the company’s latest earnings report, Q2 FY2027 revenue hit $96.221 billion, up 18% quarter-over-quarter and a whopping 106% year-over-year, crushing market expectations. Net income attributable to shareholders reached $59.688 billion, up 126% year-over-year and 2% quarter-over-quarter. Gross margin held steady at a lofty 75%. The company also guided Q3 revenue to approximately $108 billion, above the analyst consensus of $104.2 billion. After the report dropped, Nvidia shares surged more than 4% in after-hours trading.
