On Monday afternoon, the Nasdaq Composite Index rose by 1.5%, adding 277 points, following President Joe Biden’s decision to withdraw from the presidential race and endorse Vice President Kamala Harris. The Dow Jones Industrial Average and the S&P 500 increased by 0.3% and 1.1%, respectively.
The crypto-based betting platform Polymarket has positioned Harris as the Democratic nominee for president, while PredictIt, based in New Zealand, anticipates she will become the 47th president of the United States.
In other market news, shares of Nvidia gained 4% after reports indicated the company is developing a version of its new Blackwell AI chips for the Chinese market. Nvidia plans to collaborate with local distributor Inspur on the launch of this chip, called the “B20,” expected to ship in the second quarter of 2025. Nvidia has not commented on this development.
Tesla’s stock rose nearly 5% a day ahead of its earnings report, where CEO Elon Musk is expected to share updates regarding the long-awaited robotaxi announcement. Musk mentioned on social media that Tesla will have low production of humanoid robots for internal use next year, with hopes for higher production to support other companies by 2026.
Meanwhile, CrowdStrike, the cybersecurity firm implicated in a massive global tech outage last week, continued to face challenges as it worked to restore services. The company reported that a significant number of the approximately 8.5 million Windows devices affected are back online. However, CrowdStrike’s stock had dropped over 13% on Monday, trading around $263.
Verizon experienced a nearly 6% drop in its stock after releasing its quarterly earnings report, which revealed revenue below analysts’ expectations due to customers holding onto their old devices longer. The company’s second-quarter revenue was reported at $32.8 billion, slightly less than the estimated $33.06 billion, while its earnings per share matched expectations at $1.15.