The Nasdaq climbed by 1.5%, gaining 277 points on Monday afternoon, following President Joe Biden’s announcement of his withdrawal from the presidential race and his endorsement of Vice President Kamala Harris. During the same period, the Dow Jones Industrial Average and S&P 500 saw increases of 0.3% and 1.1%, respectively.
The cryptocurrency-based betting platform Polymarket has named Harris as the Democratic nominee for president, while New Zealand’s PredictIt forecasts her becoming the 47th president of the United States.
In a related development, Nvidia’s shares rose by 4% in the afternoon after Reuters reported that the company is working on a new version of its Blackwell AI chips tailored for the Chinese market. Nvidia plans to collaborate with local distributor Inspur to launch the chip, tentatively named the “B20,” with expectations for it to begin shipping in the second quarter of 2025. Nvidia has not commented on the report.
Meanwhile, Tesla’s stock surged nearly 5% on the eve of its earnings report, during which CEO Elon Musk is anticipated to provide updates on the much-anticipated robotaxi unveiling. Musk stated on X that Tesla plans to have functional humanoid robots in limited production for internal use next year and aims for mass production for other companies by 2026.
CrowdStrike, the cybersecurity firm linked to Friday’s extensive global tech outage, continues to face challenges as it works to recover. The firm reported that a significant number of the approximately 8.5 million Windows devices affected have returned to operation. However, CrowdStrike’s stock fell over 13% on Monday afternoon, trading around $263.
Verizon’s stock experienced a sharp decline of nearly 6% after the release of its quarterly earnings report, which fell short of revenue expectations as customers are keeping their old devices for longer. This trend has negatively affected upgrade rates for telecom companies offering promotional plans with new devices. Verizon reported second-quarter revenue of $32.8 billion, slightly below the analysts’ average estimate of $33.06 billion, while its earnings per share (EPS) met expectations at $1.15.