California’s recent implementation of a $20 minimum wage for fast food workers has not resulted in job losses, according to a new study.
In the financial markets, the Nasdaq rose 1.5%, adding 277 points on Monday afternoon, following President Joe Biden’s announcement that he would not seek re-election and his endorsement of Vice President Kamala Harris. The Dow Jones Industrial Average and the S&P 500 saw modest gains of 0.3% and 1.1%, respectively.
In a separate development, the crypto betting platform Polymarket has established Harris as the favored Democratic nominee for president, while PredictIt, based in New Zealand, predicts she will become the 47th president of the United States.
On the tech front, Nvidia shares climbed 4% after a report emerged indicating the company is in the process of creating a version of its new Blackwell AI chips specifically for the Chinese market. Nvidia is expected to partner with local distributor Inspur to introduce and sell the chip, tentatively named the “B20,” with shipments anticipated to begin in the second quarter of 2025. The company, however, did not provide any official comment on the report.
Tesla’s stock experienced a nearly 5% increase in anticipation of its upcoming earnings report, during which CEO Elon Musk is expected to discuss the delay of the company’s robotaxi launch. Musk announced on social media that Tesla plans to have functional humanoid robots available for internal use next year, with hopes for broader production by 2026.
CrowdStrike, the cybersecurity firm linked to a significant global tech outage last Friday, continues to manage the repercussions of the incident. They reported that many of the 8.5 million affected Windows devices are already back online, although CrowdStrike’s stock dropped over 13% on Monday afternoon, trading near $263.
Verizon faced a steep decline of nearly 6% after releasing its quarterly earnings report, which fell short of revenue expectations. The telecommunications company cited that customers are retaining their old phones longer, leading to decreased upgrade rates for promotional mobile plans. Verizon reported a second-quarter revenue of $32.8 billion, slightly under the analysts’ average forecast of $33.06 billion, while its earnings per share met expectations, totaling $1.15.