The stock market experienced notable movements on Monday afternoon, with the Nasdaq climbing 1.5% and gaining 277 points. This rally followed President Joe Biden’s announcement that he would not seek reelection and his endorsement of Vice President Kamala Harris. In this context, the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the S&P 500 also showed gains of 0.3% and 1.1%, respectively.
In the realm of political predictions, the betting platform Polymarket now favors Harris as the Democratic nominee, while PredictIt anticipates she could become the 47th president of the United States.
In corporate news, shares of Nvidia jumped 4% after reports emerged that the company is crafting a version of its new Blackwell AI chips tailored for the Chinese market. Nvidia is said to be partnering with local distributor Inspur to launch the chip, tentatively named the “B20,” which is expected to begin shipping in the second quarter of 2025.
Meanwhile, Tesla’s stock surged nearly 5% in anticipation of its earnings report, where CEO Elon Musk is expected to address the much-anticipated robotaxi launch. On social media, Musk revealed plans for humanoid robots to be used internally by Tesla next year, with hopes for wider production by 2026.
In contrast, CrowdStrike, the cybersecurity firm linked to a significant global tech outage last week, saw its stock drop over 13% on Monday afternoon, with shares trading around $263. The company reported that a large portion of the affected 8.5 million Windows devices are gradually coming back online.
Verizon faced a nearly 6% decline in its stock following the release of its latest quarterly earnings. The telecommunications giant fell short of revenue expectations, as a trend of customers retaining their old phones longer has negatively impacted upgrade rates for the industry. Verizon reported second-quarter revenue of $32.8 billion, slightly below the anticipated $33.06 billion, while its earnings per share remained in line with forecasts at $1.15.