The Nasdaq climbed by 1.5%, gaining 277 points on Monday afternoon, following President Joe Biden’s announcement that he would not run for reelection and his endorsement of Vice President Kamala Harris. The Dow Jones Industrial Average and S&P 500 also saw increases of 0.3% and 1.1%, respectively.
The crypto betting platform Polymarket is backing Harris as the Democratic nominee for president, while PredictIt, another betting platform based in New Zealand, predicts she will be the 47th president of the United States.
In stock news, Nvidia shares rose by 4% after a report indicated the company is working on a version of its new Blackwell AI chips specifically for the Chinese market, in collaboration with local distributor Inspur. The new chip, tentatively named the “B20,” is expected to begin shipping in the second quarter of 2025, although Nvidia declined to comment on the report.
Tesla’s stock experienced a nearly 5% increase one day before its earnings report, during which CEO Elon Musk is set to discuss the anticipated unveiling of the company’s robotaxi. On X, Musk stated that Tesla plans to have humanoid robots for internal use in low production by next year and aims for higher production levels for other companies by 2026.
Meanwhile, CrowdStrike is still addressing the repercussions of a significant global tech outage from last Friday. The cybersecurity company reported that of the approximately 8.5 million impacted Windows devices, many are now back online. However, CrowdStrike’s stock was down over 13% on Monday, trading around $263.
Verizon’s stock dropped nearly 6% following the release of its quarterly earnings report, which fell short of revenue estimates. The company noted that customers are choosing to keep their old phones longer, adversely affecting upgrade rates tied to promotional plans. Verizon reported second-quarter revenue of $32.8 billion, slightly below the anticipated $33.06 billion, while earnings per share matched expectations at $1.15.