On Monday afternoon, the Nasdaq index rose by 1.5%, gaining 277 points, following President Joe Biden’s withdrawal from the presidential race and his endorsement of Vice President Kamala Harris. The Dow Jones Industrial Average and the S&P 500 also saw increases of 0.3% and 1.1%, respectively.
Polymarket, a crypto-based betting platform, has designated Harris as the Democratic nominee for president. Meanwhile, PredictIt, based in New Zealand, predicts she will become the 47th president of the United States.
Nvidia’s stock climbed by 4% in the afternoon after reports emerged that the company is developing a version of its Blackwell AI chips for the Chinese market. Nvidia is reportedly collaborating with local distributor Inspur to launch the chip, tentatively named the “B20,” in China, with shipments expected to begin in the second quarter of 2025. Nvidia has not commented on the news.
Tesla’s shares surged nearly 5% a day before its earnings report, where CEO Elon Musk is expected to update investors on the company’s delayed robotaxi project. Musk stated on X that Tesla plans to have operational humanoid robots for internal use next year, with hopes of achieving high production levels for other companies by 2026.
In contrast, CrowdStrike, the cybersecurity firm implicated in last Friday’s global tech outage, is still recuperating from the incident days later, though operations are gradually returning to normal. The company announced that a significant number of the approximately 8.5 million affected Windows devices are now back online. CrowdStrike’s stock fell over 13% on Monday afternoon, trading at around $263.
Verizon experienced a nearly 6% drop in stock price after releasing its quarterly earnings report, which revealed the company missed revenue expectations. The decline in customer upgrades, as many hold onto older phones for longer, has impacted the company’s performance amid promotional plans that include new mobile lines. Verizon’s second-quarter revenue totaled $32.8 billion, slightly lower than analysts’ average estimate of $33.06 billion, while its earnings per share reached $1.15, aligning with expectations.