On Monday afternoon, the Nasdaq climbed by 1.5%, gaining 277 points, following President Joe Biden’s announcement that he will not seek re-election and his endorsement of Vice President Kamala Harris. The Dow Jones Industrial Average and the S&P 500 also recorded increases of 0.3% and 1.1%, respectively.
The crypto-based betting platform Polymarket has named Harris as the frontrunner for the Democratic presidential nomination, while PredictIt in New Zealand predicts she could become the 47th president of the United States.
In other news, Nvidia’s stock rose 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 distributor Inspur to release the chip, tentatively named “B20,” expected to ship in the second quarter of 2025. The company has not commented on these reports.
Tesla’s shares surged nearly 5% ahead of its forthcoming earnings report, where CEO Elon Musk is set to discuss the timeline for the delayed robotaxi launch. Musk indicated that Tesla aims to have functional humanoid robots ready for internal use in 2024 and potentially for other companies by 2026.
Meanwhile, cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike is still dealing with the consequences of a significant tech outage that affected approximately 8.5 million Windows devices, though many are gradually returning online. Despite this progress, the company’s stock fell over 13% on Monday, trading around $263.
Verizon experienced a nearly 6% drop in its stock following the announcement of its quarterly earnings report, which revealed that the company fell short of revenue expectations due to a trend of customers retaining their old phones longer. Verizon’s second-quarter revenue was reported at $32.8 billion, falling short of analysts’ projections of $33.06 billion, while earnings per share were consistent at $1.15.