On Monday afternoon, the Nasdaq experienced a gain of 1.5%, adding 277 points after President Joe Biden announced his withdrawal from the presidential race and endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris. The Dow Jones Industrial Average and S&P 500 also saw modest increases of 0.3% and 1.1%, respectively.
In the realm of political predictions, the crypto-based betting platform Polymarket supports Harris as the Democratic nominee for the presidency, while PredictIt from New Zealand forecasts she will become the 47th president of the United States.
Shares of Nvidia rose by 4% after reports from Reuters indicated that the company is developing a new version of its Blackwell AI chips specifically for the Chinese market. Nvidia plans to collaborate with local partner Inspur to launch the chip, tentatively named the “B20,” which is expected to begin shipping in the second quarter of 2025. The company has not commented on the report.
Tesla’s stock surged nearly 5% ahead of its upcoming earnings report, during which CEO Elon Musk is anticipated to discuss the delayed unveiling of the company’s robotaxi. Musk stated on the platform X that Tesla would produce “genuinely useful humanoid robots” for internal use next year, with hopes for broader production by 2026.
Meanwhile, CrowdStrike, the cybersecurity firm involved in a significant global tech outage last Friday, is continuing to address its repercussions. The company reported that many of the approximately 8.5 million affected Windows devices are being restored. However, CrowdStrike’s stock fell over 13% on Monday afternoon, trading at around $263.
In contrast, Verizon’s stock dropped nearly 6% following its quarterly earnings report, which missed revenue expectations as customers are retaining their old phones longer, reducing upgrade rates. Verizon reported second-quarter revenue of $32.8 billion, slightly below analyst predictions of $33.06 billion, although its earnings per share met forecasts at $1.15.