The Nasdaq experienced a 1.5% increase, gaining 277 points on Monday afternoon, following President Joe Biden’s announcement that he would withdraw from the presidential race and endorse Vice President Kamala Harris. During the same period, the Dow Jones Industrial Average and S&P 500 rose by 0.3% and 1.1%, respectively.
Prediction markets are already reacting to this shift, with the crypto-based betting platform Polymarket backing Harris as the Democratic nominee, while PredictIt from New Zealand forecasts her as the next president of the United States.
In corporate news, Nvidia’s stock rose by 4% after Reuters reported that the company is creating a version of its new Blackwell AI chips aimed at the Chinese market. Nvidia plans to collaborate with local partner Inspur to introduce the chip, which is tentatively named “B20,” in China, with shipments expected to start in the second quarter of 2025.
Tesla shares surged nearly 5% as investors await an earnings report, where CEO Elon Musk is anticipated to discuss the delayed release of the company’s robotaxi. Musk announced on social media that Tesla will have humanoid robots in limited production for internal use next year and aims for high production for external clients by 2026.
CrowdStrike, which faced significant backlash for a massive global tech outage last week, is beginning to recover, as many of the 8.5 million affected Windows devices are now operational again. Despite this progress, CrowdStrike’s stock was down over 13% on Monday, trading around $263.
Verizon’s stock dropped nearly 6% in the afternoon after the telecom company released its quarterly earnings report, which fell short of revenue expectations. The company attributed this decline to customers retaining their old phones for longer periods, which negatively impacted upgrade rates. Verizon’s second-quarter revenue reached $32.8 billion, slightly below the anticipated $33.06 billion, while earnings per share came in at $1.15, meeting forecasts.