On Monday afternoon, the Nasdaq rose by 1.5%, gaining 277 points following President Joe Biden’s announcement that he would withdraw from the presidential race and endorse Vice President Kamala Harris. In that same timeframe, the Dow Jones Industrial Average and S&P 500 saw increases of 0.3% and 1.1%, respectively.
The crypto-based betting platform Polymarket is supporting Harris as the likely Democratic nominee for president, while PredictIt from New Zealand forecasts she will become the 47th president of the United States.
In a separate development, Nvidia’s shares increased by 4% after reports emerged that the company is working on a version of its new Blackwell AI chips specifically for the Chinese market. Nvidia plans to collaborate with local distribution partner Inspur to launch and sell the chip, provisionally named the “B20,” with shipments expected to begin in the second quarter of 2025. The company has not provided any comment on the matter.
Tesla’s stock jumped nearly 5% ahead of its upcoming earnings report, where CEO Elon Musk is anticipated to address the delays surrounding the company’s robotaxi project. Musk stated on X that Tesla plans to have low 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 massive global tech outage last Friday, is still navigating the aftermath of the incident. The company announced that a significant number of the approximately 8.5 million affected Windows devices are back online. Nonetheless, CrowdStrike’s stock was down more than 13% on Monday afternoon, trading at around $263.
In another notable market reaction, Verizon’s shares fell nearly 6% after the company released its quarterly earnings report, which showed it missed revenue expectations. The telecommunications giant reported second-quarter revenue of $32.8 billion, just below the anticipated $33.06 billion, while earnings per share aligned with forecasts at $1.15. The company’s struggles have been attributed to customers holding onto their old phones for longer, which has led to a decrease in upgrade rates among telecom providers.