On Monday afternoon, the Nasdaq Composite saw a significant rise of 1.5%, or 277 points, following President Joe Biden’s announcement that he would not seek re-election and his endorsement of Vice President Kamala Harris as the Democratic nominee. The Dow Jones Industrial Average and the S&P 500 also gained, with increases of 0.3% and 1.1%, respectively.
In the realm of political predictions, the crypto-based betting platform Polymarket has backed Harris as the likely Democratic nominee, while PredictIt—based in New Zealand—foresees her becoming the 47th president of the United States.
In the tech sector, Nvidia shares rose by 4% in the afternoon after news emerged that the company is working on a new version of its Blackwell AI chips specifically for the Chinese market. Reports indicate that Nvidia will collaborate with local distributor Inspur to launch the chip, provisionally named the “B20,” with shipments expected to begin in the second quarter of 2025. Nvidia has not commented on these developments.
Tesla’s stock advanced nearly 5% just one day before the release of its earnings report, where CEO Elon Musk is anticipated to discuss updates on the long-awaited robotaxi concept. Musk mentioned on social media that Tesla plans to produce “genuinely useful humanoid robots” for internal use next year, with hopes for broader production by 2026.
Meanwhile, CrowdStrike is still recovering from the extensive tech outage caused by a failure associated with its cybersecurity services. The company reported that a significant number of the 8.5 million affected Windows devices have returned to normal operations. However, CrowdStrike’s stock dropped over 13%, with shares trading around $263 on Monday afternoon.
Verizon experienced a nearly 6% decline in stock price after reporting its quarterly earnings, which fell short of revenue projections. The telecommunications giant indicated that customers are keeping their older phones for longer, adversely affecting the upgrade rates for their promotional plans. Verizon’s second-quarter revenue totaled $32.8 billion, slightly below the anticipated $33.06 billion, with earnings per share at $1.15, aligning with expectations.