On Monday afternoon, the Nasdaq index climbed 1.5%, adding 277 points, following President Joe Biden’s announcement that he would not seek re-election and his endorsement of Vice President Kamala Harris. The Dow Jones Industrial Average and the S&P 500 also saw gains, rising by 0.3% and 1.1%, respectively.
Polymarket, a crypto-based betting platform, has declared Harris the frontrunner for the Democratic presidential nomination, while PredictIt, based in New Zealand, forecasts she will become the 47th president of the United States.
Nvidia’s stock rose by 4% after reports indicated the company is developing its new Blackwell AI chips for the Chinese market. Nvidia is expected to collaborate with a local distributor, Inspur, to launch the chip, provisionally named the “B20,” in China. Sources indicated that shipments of the B20 are anticipated to begin in the second quarter of 2025, although Nvidia declined to comment on the report.
Tesla’s shares jumped nearly 5% ahead of its earnings report, where CEO Elon Musk is expected to discuss the delayed unveiling of the company’s robotaxi. Musk mentioned on social media that Tesla aims to have useful humanoid robots in low production for internal use next year and intends to scale production for other companies by 2026.
Meanwhile, CrowdStrike, the cybersecurity firm linked to the significant global tech outage last Friday, is slowly recovering. The company reported that a substantial number of the 8.5 million Windows devices affected are now back online. However, CrowdStrike’s stock saw a decline of over 13%, trading at approximately $263 on Monday afternoon.
Verizon experienced a nearly 6% drop in its stock price following its quarterly earnings report, which revealed the company fell short of revenue expectations. Customers are increasingly keeping their old phones longer, adversely affecting upgrade rates for telecom providers. Verizon reported second-quarter revenue of $32.8 billion, which was below analysts’ projected estimate of $33.06 billion. Its earnings per share remained in line with expectations at $1.15.