Nasdaq climbed by 1.5%, gaining 277 points on Monday afternoon after President Joe Biden announced his withdrawal from the presidential race on Sunday and endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris. The Dow Jones Industrial Average and S&P 500 also saw increases of 0.3% and 1.1%, respectively.
Polymarket, a crypto-based betting platform, supports Harris as the Democratic nominee for president, while PredictIt, based in New Zealand, forecasts her to become the 47th president of the United States.
In tech news, Nvidia’s stock rose by 4% following reports that the company is working on a version of its new Blackwell AI chips for China. Collaborating with local partner Inspur, Nvidia plans to launch the chip, referred to as the “B20,” with shipments expected to begin in the second quarter of 2025. Nvidia has not provided further comments on the development.
In anticipation of its earnings report, Tesla’s shares surged nearly 5%. Elon Musk is expected to discuss updates regarding the company’s delayed robotaxi unveiling during the report. Musk indicated on X that Tesla is planning low production of humanoid robots for internal use next year, with hopes for higher production levels for other companies by 2026.
Meanwhile, CrowdStrike, the cybersecurity firm involved in a significant global tech outage last Friday, is still facing repercussions, though operations are returning to normal. The company reported that a large number of the approximately 8.5 million impacted Windows devices are back online. However, CrowdStrike’s stock fell over 13% on Monday afternoon, trading around $263.
Verizon experienced a nearly 6% drop in its stock after releasing its quarterly earnings report, which revealed that the company fell short of revenue estimates. Customers are reportedly holding onto their old devices longer, which has negatively affected the company’s upgrade rate. Verizon reported second-quarter revenues of $32.8 billion, slightly below the expected $33.06 billion, with earnings per share matching estimates at $1.15.