The Nasdaq Composite surged by 1.5%, climbing 277 points on Monday afternoon, following President Joe Biden’s decision to withdraw from the presidential race and endorse Vice President Kamala Harris. In the same period, the Dow Jones Industrial Average and S&P 500 saw increases of 0.3% and 1.1%, respectively.
In political forecasting, the crypto betting platform Polymarket backs Harris as the Democratic nominee for president, while New Zealand’s PredictIt predicts she could become the 47th president of the United States.
Nvidia’s stock rose by 4% in the afternoon after reports indicated that the company is working on a version of its new Blackwell AI chips tailored for the Chinese market. Nvidia is expected to collaborate with local distributor Inspur to launch and market the chip, provisionally named the “B20,” with deliveries anticipated to begin in the second quarter of 2025. Nvidia has not provided any comments on the report.
Tesla’s stock jumped nearly 5% just a day before its forthcoming earnings report. CEO Elon Musk is expected to discuss the company’s delayed robotaxi launch during the announcement. He noted on social media that Tesla is aiming for limited production of humanoid robots for internal use next year and hopes for higher production for other companies by 2026.
Meanwhile, CrowdStrike, the cybersecurity firm linked to a significant global technology outage last Friday, is still dealing with the consequences. The company reported that a substantial number of the approximately 8.5 million affected Windows devices have returned to operational status. However, CrowdStrike’s stock dropped over 13% in afternoon trading, hovering around $263.
Verizon faced a nearly 6% decline in its stock following the release of its quarterly earnings report, which fell short of revenue expectations. The telecom giant revealed that consumers are retaining their old phones longer, negatively affecting upgrade rates for companies offering promotional plans with new devices. Verizon’s second-quarter revenue was reported at $32.8 billion, just below the analysts’ consensus estimate of $33.06 billion, while its earnings per share matched expectations at $1.15.