On Monday afternoon, the Nasdaq composite rose 1.5%, gaining 277 points, following President Joe Biden’s announcement that he would withdraw from the presidential race and endorse Vice President Kamala Harris. The Dow Jones Industrial Average added 0.3%, while the S&P 500 increased by 1.1%.
Polymarket, a crypto-based betting platform, is backing Harris as the Democratic nominee, and PredictIt, based in New Zealand, predicts she will become the 47th president of the United States.
Nvidia stocks climbed nearly 4% after reports indicated that the company is developing a version of its new Blackwell AI chips specifically for the Chinese market. Nvidia is expected to partner with local distributor Inspur to launch the so-called “B20” chip, which is anticipated to begin shipping in the second quarter of 2025. Nvidia has not provided comments on the matter.
Tesla’s stock saw a surge of nearly 5% just one day ahead of its earnings report, during which CEO Elon Musk is expected to discuss the anticipated launch of the company’s delayed robotaxi initiative. Musk stated on X that Tesla is aiming to have functional humanoid robots for internal use next year and hopes to achieve high production levels for external companies by 2026.
CrowdStrike, the cybersecurity firm linked to a significant global tech outage that occurred last Friday, is working to resolve the aftereffects of the incident. The company reported that a large portion of the approximately 8.5 million affected Windows devices is back online and operational. However, CrowdStrike’s stock fell over 13% in trading on Monday, hovering around $263.
Verizon experienced a sharp decline of nearly 6% after it released its quarterly earnings report. The telecommunications giant missed revenue expectations, with customers holding onto their old phones longer, which has negatively impacted upgrade rates. Verizon’s second-quarter revenue totaled $32.8 billion, just below the expected $33.06 billion, while its earnings per share remained steady at $1.15, in line with projections.