On Monday afternoon, the Nasdaq experienced a 1.5% rise, gaining 277 points, following President Joe Biden’s decision to withdraw from the presidential race and endorse Vice President Kamala Harris. The Dow Jones Industrial Average and S&P 500 also saw increases, adding 0.3% and 1.1% respectively.
The crypto-based betting platform Polymarket is supporting Harris as the Democratic nominee, while PredictIt from New Zealand forecasts she will become the 47th president of the United States.
In the realm of technology, Nvidia’s shares climbed 4% after it was reported that the company is developing a version of its new Blackwell AI chips specifically for the Chinese market. Nvidia plans to collaborate with local partner Inspur to introduce the chip, tentatively named the “B20,” which is expected to begin shipping in the second quarter of 2025, though Nvidia has not commented on the report.
Tesla’s stock increased nearly 5% in anticipation of its upcoming earnings report, where CEO Elon Musk is expected to discuss the delayed launch of its robotaxi. Musk stated on social media that the company aims to have useful humanoid robots in low production for internal use next year and hopes for high production for external companies by 2026.
Meanwhile, CrowdStrike, the cybersecurity firm involved in last week’s widespread tech outage, is slowly recovering as many of the approximately 8.5 million affected Windows devices are getting back online. However, its stock dropped over 13% in the afternoon, trading around $263.
Verizon experienced a nearly 6% decline in its stock price following the release of its quarterly earnings report. The telecommunications giant fell short of revenue estimates as customers are keeping their old phones longer, negatively impacting upgrade rates. Verizon’s second-quarter revenue was reported at $32.8 billion, slightly below the analysts’ consensus of $33.06 billion, and it achieved an earnings per share of $1.15, meeting expectations.