On Monday afternoon, the Nasdaq Composite Index increased by 1.5%, adding 277 points, following President Joe Biden’s withdrawal from the presidential race on Sunday and his endorsement of Vice President Kamala Harris. Meanwhile, the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the S&P 500 saw gains of 0.3% and 1.1%, respectively.
In political betting, the crypto platform Polymarket has placed its support behind Harris as the Democratic nominee for president, while New Zealand-based PredictIt forecasts that she will become the 47th president of the United States.
In the tech sector, Nvidia’s shares rose by 4% after news broke that the company is working on a version of its Blackwell AI chips tailored for the Chinese market. Reportedly, Nvidia will partner with the local firm Inspur for the launch and sale of the chip, which is tentatively named the “B20,” expected to begin shipping in the second quarter of 2025. Nvidia has not commented on the matter.
Tesla’s stock jumped nearly 5% in anticipation of its upcoming earnings report, where CEO Elon Musk is likely to discuss the new developments regarding its delayed robotaxi feature. Musk indicated on social media that Tesla plans to have functional humanoid robots for internal use next year, with hopes for broader production by 2026.
CrowdStrike, the cybersecurity firm involved in Friday’s significant global tech outage, is beginning to recover from the incident. The company reported that of the estimated 8.5 million impacted Windows devices, a substantial portion are now back online. However, CrowdStrike’s stock fell over 13% on Monday afternoon, trading around $263.
Verizon experienced a sharp decline of nearly 6% following its quarterly earnings report, which missed revenue estimates due to customers retaining their older phones for extended periods. This trend has negatively affected upgrade rates for telecom companies with promotional plans linked to new devices. Verizon reported second-quarter revenue of $32.8 billion, slightly below the analysts’ forecast of $33.06 billion, with earnings per share at $1.15, in line with expectations.