On Monday afternoon, the Nasdaq rose by 1.5%, gaining 277 points, following President Joe Biden’s announcement to withdraw from the presidential race and endorse Vice President Kamala Harris. The Dow Jones Industrial Average and S&P 500 also experienced gains, adding 0.3% and 1.1%, respectively.
The crypto-based betting platform Polymarket has endorsed Harris as the Democratic nominee for president, while PredictIt, based in New Zealand, predicts she will become the 47th president of the United States.
In technology news, Nvidia’s shares saw a 4% increase after it was reported that the company is developing a version of its new Blackwell AI chips specifically for the Chinese market. Nvidia plans to collaborate with local partner Inspur to launch the chip, provisionally named the “B20,” which is projected to begin shipping in the second quarter of 2025.
Tesla’s stock surged nearly 5% a day before its earnings report, where Elon Musk is expected to discuss the company’s delayed robotaxi unveiling. Musk shared on X that “Tesla will have genuinely useful humanoid robots in low production for Tesla internal use next year and, hopefully, high production for other companies in 2026.”
Meanwhile, CrowdStrike, the cybersecurity company linked to a significant global tech outage last week, reported that operations are gradually returning to normal. Of the approximately 8.5 million Windows devices impacted by the incident, a substantial number are now operational. However, CrowdStrike’s stock suffered a decline of over 13%, trading around $263 in the afternoon.
Verizon experienced a nearly 6% drop after releasing its quarterly earnings report. The telecommunications company fell short of revenue estimates, attributing the setback to customers holding onto their old phones longer, which has affected upgrade rates. Verizon’s second-quarter revenue was reported at $32.8 billion, just below analysts’ expectations of $33.06 billion, and its earnings per share stood at $1.15, in line with projections.