The Nasdaq composite index experienced a 1.5% increase, gaining 277 points on Monday afternoon, following President Joe Biden’s announcement that he would withdraw from the presidential race and endorse Vice President Kamala Harris. During the same period, the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the S&P 500 saw gains of 0.3% and 1.1%, respectively.
The betting platform Polymarket has placed its support behind Harris as the Democratic nominee, while PredictIt from New Zealand anticipates she will become the 47th president of the United States.
Meanwhile, Nvidia’s stock climbed by 4% after reports surfaced suggesting the company is developing a version of its Blackwell AI chips aimed at the Chinese market. Nvidia is expected to collaborate with local distribution partner Inspur, with plans to introduce the chip, potentially named “B20,” in China, targeted for shipment in the second quarter of 2025. Nvidia has not provided a comment on this development.
Tesla’s shares surged nearly 5% in anticipation of its upcoming earnings report, where CEO Elon Musk is expected to discuss the delayed unveiling of the company’s robotaxi. Musk indicated via social media that Tesla will have human-like robots in limited production next year, with hopes for broader production beginning in 2026.
In contrast, CrowdStrike, the cybersecurity firm associated with a significant global tech outage last week, was still facing challenges as services slowly returned to normal. The company reported that a large number of the approximately 8.5 million impacted Windows devices were coming back online. However, CrowdStrike’s stock declined by over 13%, trading at around $263 in the afternoon.
Verizon also faced a nearly 6% drop in its stock following the release of its quarterly earnings report. The company underperformed in revenue expectations, with customers retaining their old phones longer than usual, negatively impacting upgrade rates. Verizon reported second-quarter revenue of $32.8 billion, slightly missing analyst predictions of $33.06 billion, while earnings per share were reported at $1.15, in line with expectations.