The Nasdaq Composite index climbed 1.5%, adding 277 points on Monday afternoon, following President Joe Biden’s decision to withdraw from the presidential race on Sunday, during which he endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris. The Dow Jones Industrial Average and the S&P 500 also saw gains, increasing by 0.3% and 1.1%, respectively.
In related political prediction news, Polymarket, a crypto-based betting platform, considers Harris the frontrunner for the Democratic nomination, while New Zealand’s PredictIt projects that she could become the 47th president of the United States.
Nvidia’s stock rose by 4% after reports emerged that the company is developing a version of its new Blackwell AI chips specifically for the Chinese market. Nvidia plans to collaborate with local distributor Inspur to launch the chip, tentatively named the “B20,” which is expected to begin shipping in the second quarter of 2025. Nvidia has not commented on these developments.
Tesla shares jumped nearly 5% on the eve of its earnings report, where CEO Elon Musk is anticipated to discuss the rollout of the long-awaited robotaxi. Musk stated on social media that “Tesla will have genuinely useful humanoid robots in low production for internal use next year and hopes for high production for other companies by 2026.”
In contrast, CrowdStrike, which was implicated in a significant global tech outage last Friday, was still facing challenges days later, yet the situation was gradually stabilizing. The company reported that a notable number of the approximately 8.5 million Windows devices affected were successfully brought back online and operational. However, CrowdStrike’s stock fell over 13% in afternoon trading, positioning around $263.
Verizon experienced a nearly 6% drop in its stock price following the announcement of its quarterly earnings. The telecommunications giant missed revenue expectations due to customers retaining their older phones longer, adversely affecting upgrade rates amidst promotional offers. Verizon’s second-quarter revenue totaled $32.8 billion, falling short of analyst predictions of $33.06 billion, while its earnings per share stood at $1.15, aligned with expectations.