On Monday afternoon, the Nasdaq Composite surged by 1.5%, adding 277 points, following President Joe Biden’s decision to exit the presidential race and endorse Vice President Kamala Harris. Meanwhile, the Dow Jones Industrial Average and S&P 500 saw modest gains of 0.3% and 1.1%, respectively.
The crypto betting platform Polymarket is backing Harris as the Democratic nominee for presidency, while PredictIt from New Zealand forecasts that she will become the 47th president of the United States.
In corporate news, Nvidia’s stock rose by 4% after reports indicated that the company is crafting a version of its Blackwell AI chips specifically for the Chinese market. Nvidia plans to partner with local distributor Inspur to introduce and sell the chip, known informally as the “B20,” with shipments anticipated to commence in the second quarter of 2025. Nvidia has not commented on the matter.
Tesla’s stock experienced a nearly 5% increase the day before its earnings announcement, where CEO Elon Musk is expected to discuss the long-awaited unveiling of the company’s robotaxi. Musk shared on social media that Tesla is aiming to produce humanoid robots for internal use by next year, with hopes of broader production for external clients by 2026.
CrowdStrike, the cybersecurity firm involved in a significant global tech outage last week, is slowly recovering from the incident. The company announced on social media that a major portion of the 8.5 million Windows devices affected are now functioning normally. However, CrowdStrike’s stock was down over 13% in the afternoon, trading around $263.
Verizon’s stock faced a nearly 6% drop following the release of its quarterly earnings report, which indicated that the company missed its revenue targets. Customers are reportedly retaining their older devices longer, leading to a decline in upgrade rates that affects telecom companies offering promotional plans linked to new phone lines. In the second quarter, Verizon reported revenue of $32.8 billion, slightly below analyst expectations of $33.06 billion, while its earnings per share (EPS) matched forecasts at $1.15.