On Monday afternoon, the Nasdaq climbed by 1.5%, gaining 277 points, following President Joe Biden’s announcement that he would exit the presidential race and endorse Vice President Kamala Harris. The Dow Jones Industrial Average and S&P 500 also reported gains of 0.3% and 1.1%, respectively.
The crypto betting platform Polymarket has favored Harris as the Democratic nominee for president, while PredictIt, based in New Zealand, forecasts her to be the 47th president of the United States.
In tech news, Nvidia’s shares rose 4% after reports indicated that the company is creating a new version of its Blackwell AI chips targeted for the Chinese market. Nvidia plans to collaborate with a local distributor, Inspur, to launch the chip, provisionally named “B20,” with shipments expected to begin in the second quarter of 2025. Nvidia has not commented on the reports.
Tesla’s stock jumped nearly 5% ahead of its earnings report, where CEO Elon Musk is anticipated to discuss the delayed launch of the company’s robotaxi. Musk stated on social media that Tesla will have low production of humanoid robots for internal use by next year, aiming for higher production for other companies by 2026.
CrowdStrike, the cybersecurity firm involved in a significant global tech outage last Friday, continues to address the aftermath, although operations are gradually returning to normal. The company reported that many of the approximately 8.5 million affected Windows devices are back online. Despite this, CrowdStrike’s stock has seen a decline of over 13%, trading around $263.
Verizon’s stock dipped close to 6% after the release of its quarterly earnings report, which fell short of revenue expectations. The company indicated that customers are retaining old phones for longer, impacting upgrade rates for telecom providers with promotional plans for new devices. Verizon reported second-quarter revenue of $32.8 billion, slightly lower than the anticipated $33.06 billion, with earnings per share at $1.15, meeting expectations.