The Nasdaq Composite Index increased by 1.5%, gaining 277 points on Monday afternoon, following President Joe Biden’s announcement that he is withdrawing from the presidential race and endorsing Vice President Kamala Harris. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose by 0.3%, while the S&P 500 saw an increase of 1.1%.
In the realm of political betting, the crypto-based platform Polymarket is backing Harris as the Democratic nominee for president, while New Zealand’s PredictIt forecasts that she will be the 47th president of the United States.
In the tech sector, Nvidia’s stock climbed by 4% after reports emerged that the company is developing a version of its new Blackwell AI chips specifically for the Chinese market. Nvidia plans to partner with a local distributor, Inspur, to launch the chip, tentatively named “B20,” with initial shipments expected in the second quarter of 2025. Nvidia has not provided further comments on the matter.
Tesla’s shares jumped nearly 5% ahead of its earnings report, where CEO Elon Musk is anticipated to discuss the delays surrounding the company’s robotaxi unveiling. Musk stated on social media that Tesla aims to produce useful humanoid robots for internal use next year, with hopes for broader production by 2026.
In cybersecurity, CrowdStrike is still managing the repercussions of a significant global tech outage that occurred recently. The company reported that many of the approximately 8.5 million Windows devices affected are now operational again, although CrowdStrike’s stock dropped over 13% on Monday afternoon, trading around $263.
Verizon experienced a sharp decline of nearly 6% following the release of its quarterly earnings report, which indicated that the company missed revenue estimates. The telecom giant noted that customers are keeping their old phones longer, negatively affecting upgrade rates for new phone lines and promotional plans. Verizon’s second-quarter revenue was reported at $32.8 billion, falling slightly short of analysts’ expectations of $33.06 billion, while earnings per share were in line with estimates at $1.15.