The Nasdaq saw an increase of 1.5%, adding 277 points on Monday afternoon, following President Joe Biden’s announcement that he would withdraw from the presidential race and endorse Vice President Kamala Harris. Meanwhile, the Dow Jones Industrial Average and S&P 500 rose by 0.3% and 1.1%, respectively.
The betting platform Polymarket has named Harris as the favored candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination, while PredictIt from New Zealand forecasts her as the potential 47th president of the United States.
In corporate news, Nvidia’s shares climbed by 4% following a report from Reuters indicating that the company is creating a new version of its Blackwell AI chips intended for the Chinese market. Nvidia is partnering with a local distributor, Inspur, to develop and market the chip, which is provisionally named the “B20,” anticipated to begin shipping in the second quarter of 2025. Nvidia has opted not to comment on this development.
Tesla’s stock surged nearly 5% ahead of its upcoming earnings report, where CEO Elon Musk is expected to discuss the long-awaited unveiling of the company’s robotaxi service. Musk mentioned on social media that Tesla plans to produce useful humanoid robots for internal use next year, with hopes of high production for external companies by 2026.
CrowdStrike, the cybersecurity firm responsible for a significant global tech outage last Friday, is still managing the consequences of the incident. The company reported that many of the roughly 8.5 million Windows devices affected are back online. However, CrowdStrike’s stock faced a decline of over 13% on Monday, trading around $263.
Verizon’s stock dropped nearly 6% in the afternoon after the company released its quarterly earnings report, which fell short of revenue expectations. The telecom giant noted that customers are keeping their old phones for extended periods, negatively impacting upgrade rates for promotional plans tied to new devices. Verizon reported second-quarter revenue of $32.8 billion, slightly less than the $33.06 billion forecasted by analysts, with earnings per share remaining steady at $1.15.