On Monday afternoon, the Nasdaq saw a rise of 1.5%, 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 the S&P 500 also experienced gains, adding 0.3% and 1.1%, respectively.
The crypto-based betting platform Polymarket predicts Harris will be the Democratic nominee for president, while New Zealand’s PredictIt predicts she will become the 47th president of the United States.
In other market news, Nvidia’s shares increased by 4% after reports indicated that the company is developing a version of its Blackwell AI chips specifically for the Chinese market. Nvidia plans to collaborate with local partner Inspur to launch the new chip, tentatively named the “B20,” which is expected to begin shipping in the second quarter of 2025.
Tesla’s stock surged nearly 5% just one day before its earnings report, where CEO Elon Musk is anticipated to update investors on the company’s delayed robotaxi program. Musk noted on social media that Tesla aims to produce humanoid robots for internal use next year, with plans for higher production levels for third-party companies by 2026.
Meanwhile, cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike is still recovering from the repercussions of last week’s extensive tech outage. The company reported that a significant number of the approximately 8.5 million affected Windows devices are back online. However, CrowdStrike’s stock was down over 13% on Monday, trading around $263.
Verizon faced a nearly 6% drop in its stock price after releasing its quarterly earnings report. The telecommunications company’s revenue fell short of analysts’ expectations, affected by customers keeping their old phones longer, which has impacted upgrade rates for new devices. Verizon reported second-quarter revenue of $32.8 billion, slightly below the average estimate of $33.06 billion, with earnings per share (EPS) meeting expectations at $1.15.