Mars, the manufacturer of M&M candies, is set to acquire Kellanova, the maker of Pop-Tarts, in a significant business deal this year.
On the stock market, the Nasdaq Composite surged by 1.5%, gaining 277 points on Monday afternoon, following President Joe Biden’s withdrawal from the presidential race over the weekend, coupled with his endorsement of Vice President Kamala Harris. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose by 0.3%, while the S&P 500 increased by 1.1%.
In political betting, the crypto-based platform Polymarket has identified Harris as the leading Democratic nominee for president, and the New Zealand-based PredictIt predicts she may become the 47th president of the United States.
In tech news, Nvidia’s shares rose by 4% after reports emerged that the company is developing a version of its new Blackwell AI chips specifically for the Chinese market. The firm is partnering with local distributor Inspur to introduce the chip, tentatively named the “B20,” with shipments expected to start in the second quarter of 2025.
Tesla’s stock jumped nearly 5% ahead of its earnings report, where CEO Elon Musk is anticipated to discuss the delay in the rollout of its robotaxi service. Musk indicated on social media that Tesla plans to produce humanoid robots for internal use by next year, with a broader rollout for other companies expected by 2026.
Meanwhile, CrowdStrike, the cybersecurity firm behind a recent significant global tech outage, is slowly recovering from the incident. The company reported that a substantial number of the 8.5 million Windows devices affected are now back online, although its stock was down over 13%, trading around $263.
Verizon experienced a nearly 6% drop in its stock price after releasing its quarterly earnings report, which revealed that the company missed revenue estimates. This shortfall is partly due to consumers retaining their old phones for longer, which has negatively impacted upgrade rates for telecom firms. Verizon’s revenue for the second quarter stood at $32.8 billion, slightly below the projected $33.06 billion, while it reported earnings per share of $1.15, meeting expectations.