On Monday afternoon, the Nasdaq experienced a rise of 1.5%, increasing by 277 points. This surge followed President Joe Biden’s decision to withdraw from the presidential race on Sunday and endorse Vice President Kamala Harris. The Dow Jones Industrial Average and S&P 500 also saw gains, with increases of 0.3% and 1.1%, respectively.
Polymarket, a crypto-based betting platform, has placed its bets on Harris as the Democratic presidential nominee, while PredictIt, based in New Zealand, forecasts she will become the 47th president of the United States.
Nvidia’s shares rose approximately 4% after reports indicated that the company is developing a new version of its Blackwell AI chips tailored for the Chinese market. Nvidia is expected to partner with Inspur, a local distributor, to sell the chip, tentatively named the “B20,” which is anticipated to begin shipping in the second quarter of 2025. Nvidia did not provide any comments on the matter.
In anticipation of its upcoming earnings report, Tesla’s stock jumped nearly 5%. During the report, CEO Elon Musk is expected to share details on the delayed rollout of the company’s robotaxi program. Musk stated on X that Tesla plans to have useful humanoid robots available for internal use next year, with hopes for broader production by 2026.
CrowdStrike, the cybersecurity firm responsible for the significant global tech outage last Friday, continues to deal with the repercussions, though operations are gradually returning to normal. The company reported that a large portion of the 8.5 million impacted Windows devices are now back online. Despite this, CrowdStrike’s stock fell over 13%, trading around $263 in the afternoon.
Verizon experienced a nearly 6% drop in stock price following its quarterly earnings report, which revealed a shortfall in revenue expectations. The telecommunications giant reported second-quarter revenue of $32.8 billion, slightly under the forecasted $33.06 billion. Its earnings per share (EPS) were reported at $1.15, meeting analysts’ estimates. The decrease in upgrade rates is attributed to customers holding onto their old phones for longer periods, affecting telecom companies’ promotional plans for new mobile lines.