The Nasdaq experienced a 1.5% increase, gaining 277 points on Monday afternoon, following President Joe Biden’s exit from the presidential race on Sunday and his endorsement of Vice President Kamala Harris. The Dow Jones Industrial Average and S&P 500 also saw gains of 0.3% and 1.1%, respectively.
Cryptocurrency-based betting platform Polymarket has declared Harris as the likely Democratic nominee for president, while the New Zealand-based PredictIt forecasts that she may become the 47th president of the United States.
Nvidia’s shares rose by 4% in the afternoon after reports indicated the company is creating a version of its new Blackwell AI chips specifically for the Chinese market. Nvidia is expected to collaborate with local partner Inspur to introduce and distribute the chip, provisionally named the “B20,” in China, with shipping anticipated to begin in the second quarter of 2025. Nvidia has not issued any comments regarding the report.
Tesla’s stock saw a nearly 5% increase ahead of its earnings report, during which CEO Elon Musk is expected to discuss the company’s postponed robotaxi launch. Musk mentioned on X that Tesla aims to have functional humanoid robots in low production for internal use next year, with hopes for broader production for other companies in 2026.
CrowdStrike, the cybersecurity firm linked to a recent significant global tech outage, continues to manage the repercussions. The company reported that a notable number of the approximately 8.5 million Windows devices affected by the outage are now back online. However, CrowdStrike’s stock was down over 13% in the afternoon, trading around $263.
Verizon shares dropped nearly 6% following its quarterly earnings report, which indicated that the company fell short of revenue expectations as customers are retaining their older phones longer, negatively affecting upgrade rates for telecom companies. Verizon reported second-quarter revenue of $32.8 billion, slightly below the analysts’ average estimate of $33.06 billion, with earnings per share (EPS) meeting expectations at $1.15.