President Donald Trump’s periodic transaction report for August 2026 lists six Nvidia lines: five purchases and one sale of $500,001 to $1,000,000 on 21 August, according to the OGE Form 278-T posted by the Office of Government Ethics on 8 October. The report was signed on 17 September and received by OGE on 25 September.
Nvidia closed at $214.72 on 21 August and at $166.19 on 12 November, 22.6% lower, by our arithmetic from Yahoo Finance data. In between, the stock rose to a closing high of $239.24 on 6 October, 11.4% above the 21 August close. The form gives value ranges, not share counts or prices.
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The key insight: As we read the form, the Nvidia sale is one line among 517, filed on a date when the same report lists sales of AMD, Broadcom, Micron and other technology names; the document shows activity across a large portfolio, not a single-stock position, and it gives ranges rather than share counts.
The report numbers 517 transactions across 18 pages. The Nvidia lines are a purchase of $250,001 to $500,000 on 3 August, a purchase of $1,001 to $15,000 on 10 August, a purchase of $500,001 to $1,000,000 on 17 August, the sale of $500,001 to $1,000,000 on 21 August, a purchase of $1,001 to $15,000 on 24 August, and a purchase of $15,001 to $50,000 on 26 August.
Added together, the five purchases come to between $767,005 and $1,580,000, by our arithmetic from the ranges. The form marks the 3 August and 10 August purchases with “Yes” in its column headed “Notification Received Over 30 Days Ago”, and the other four Nvidia lines with “No”.
Nvidia daily closing price, 3 August to 12 November 2026 (Yahoo Finance), with the dates of Nvidia lines in the President’s OGE Form 278-T: purchases on 3, 10, 17 and 26 August and a sale on 21 August. The 21 August close was $214.72, the 6 October high $239.24 and the 12 November close $166.19. Percentages are our arithmetic; the chart implies no link between the transactions and later events.
What Else the Report Lists on 21 August
The Nvidia sale sits among many lines dated 21 August. Sales on that date include Advanced Micro Devices at $1,000,001 to $5,000,000; Broadcom, Microchip Technology and Dell Technologies at $500,001 to $1,000,000 each; and Micron Technology, Marvell Technology, Applied Materials, Coherent and Ciena at $250,001 to $500,000 each.
The report also lists purchases dated 21 August, including Meta Platforms at $5,000,001 to $25,000,000 and AT&T at $1,000,001 to $5,000,000. The form does not give a reason for any transaction.
How the Disclosure Works
The form’s summary page says the 278-T “discloses purchases, sales, or exchanges of securities in excess of $1,000 made on behalf of the filer, the filer’s spouse, or dependent child”. It adds that transactions “are required to be disclosed within 30 days of receiving notification of a transaction but not later than 45 days after the transaction”.
The report was signed 27 days after the 21 August sale and received by OGE 35 days after it, by our count. An agency ethics official signed the opinion on 25 September, and OGE’s certification is digitally signed on 6 October. The OGE index lists the file with the President’s other 278-T reports.
Measured from the 6 October high, the 12 November close is 30.5% lower, by our arithmetic. The 12 November close is also the lowest in the Yahoo Finance series from 3 August, the date of the first Nvidia purchase in the report.
The Structural Read
As we read the timing, the five purchases outweigh the sale by range: $767,005 to $1,580,000 bought against $500,001 to $1,000,000 sold, by our arithmetic, so the report does not show an exit from Nvidia in August.
As we read the price path, Nvidia closed 11.4% above the 21 August level on 6 October and 22.6% below it on 12 November, by our arithmetic from Yahoo Finance data; both moves came after the sale date.
OGE Form 278-T, summary of contents
“Transactions are required to be disclosed within 30 days of receiving notification of a transaction but not later than 45 days after the transaction.”
Three Implications
FOR INVESTORS The 278-T gives value ranges only; the 21 August Nvidia sale was $500,001 to $1,000,000, and the stock closed at $166.19 on 12 November, per Yahoo Finance.
FOR GOVERNANCE WATCHERS The form records an agency ethics official’s opinion dated 25 September and an OGE certification digitally signed on 6 October; the comments box is blank.
FOR READERS OF THE NVIDIA STORY The CEO exit and its market effect are covered in our piece on the opening drop.
The framework says of Layer 9, Governance: “Layer 9 answers to geopolitics, not to engineering.”
As we read it, a disclosure regime that publishes the head of government’s trades in the compute layer’s largest company is part of that governance layer. The framework predates this report and does not discuss it.
Value range of each Nvidia line in the President’s OGE Form 278-T, August 2026. The five purchases total $767,005 to $1,580,000 by our arithmetic (the chart omits the 24 August purchase of $1,001 to $15,000); the sale was $500,001 to $1,000,000. The form gives ranges, not share counts or prices.
What Is Not Established
The report does not say who decided the trades or whether any account is managed by an outside adviser, and we found no statement on that in the document. It gives value ranges, so the number of shares and the price of the 21 August sale are not established. The publication did not contact the White House for this piece.
The agency ethics official’s opinion on the form concludes that the filer is in compliance with applicable laws and regulations, subject to comments, and the comments box is blank. The report does not link any transaction to later company events, and this piece draws no such link.
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The President’s August 278-T lists five Nvidia purchases worth $767,005 to $1,580,000 combined and one sale of $500,001 to $1,000,000 on 21 August, alongside sales of other technology stocks the same day. Nvidia rose 11.4% from that day’s close to its 6 October high, then fell to $166.19 on 12 November, 22.6% below the 21 August close, by our arithmetic.
A note on sourcing. We read the President’s OGE Form 278-T (signed 17 September 2026, posted 8 October) in full, as page images and text; the Nvidia lines were checked against the page images. Prices are daily closes from Yahoo Finance. Earlier facts (the 8-K and our coverage of the CEO exit) are as set out in our pieces linked above. Percentages, totals and day counts are our arithmetic.
Under our editorial policy this piece covers governance and markets only and implies no motive from the timing of any transaction. The White House was not contacted for this piece.
Correction, 13 November 2026: an earlier version of this piece listed five Nvidia lines and four purchases. The report also lists a sixth Nvidia line, #261, a purchase of $1,001 to $15,000 dated 24 August 2026. The text, totals and headline have been updated; the charts show the other five lines. See also our count of every line for nine AI companies in the same report.
Gennaro Cuofano is a CRO and tech executive who has worked in AI since late 2015, starting with bringing NLP, natural-language generation, voice and chatbot products to the marketing industry. His background is in law and finance: he holds a Master's degree in Law and an International MBA with an emphasis on corporate finance (LUISS Business School and the University of San Diego, 2012), and worked as a financial analyst at a real-estate investment firm in San Diego and as an assistant controller. His work focuses on business model strategy, business engineering and, more broadly, structural analysis: how companies make money, read from their own filings. He created FourWeekMBA and leads research there and at The Business Engineer, his newsletter on AI and business strategy, with over 95,000 subscribers and more than 1,000 published analyses. His writing has also appeared on Entrepreneur (for example, How to Digitize a Family Business in Europe) and HackerNoon. Find him on LinkedIn and Substack. See how we source.
