The Nasdaq index experienced a rise of 1.5%, gaining 277 points on Monday afternoon, following President Joe Biden’s exit from the presidential race and his endorsement of Vice President Kamala Harris. Meanwhile, the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the S&P 500 increased by 0.3% and 1.1%, respectively.
In the political betting scene, Polymarket, a crypto-based platform, backs Harris as the Democratic nominee, while PredictIt, based in New Zealand, forecasts she could become the 47th president of the United States.
In tech news, Nvidia shares surged by 4% in the afternoon after reports from Reuters indicated that the company is creating 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 start shipping in the second quarter of 2025. Nvidia has not provided any comments on this matter.
Tesla’s stock saw a nearly 5% rise a day before its earnings report, during which CEO Elon Musk is anticipated to discuss the delay of the company’s robotaxi rollout. Musk tweeted that Tesla plans to have functional humanoid robots in limited production for internal use next year and aims for broader production for other companies by 2026.
CrowdStrike, the cybersecurity firm involved in a significant global tech outage on Friday, continues to deal with the repercussions as operations gradually normalize. The company reported that a large portion of the approximately 8.5 million Windows devices affected are back online. However, CrowdStrike shares dropped over 13%, trading around $263 on Monday afternoon.
Verizon faced a nearly 6% decline after releasing its quarterly earnings report, which showed that the company missed revenue estimates due to customers retaining their old phones for longer. This retention trend has adversely impacted upgrade rates, affecting telecom firms that provide promotional plans. Verizon’s second-quarter revenue was $32.8 billion, slightly under analysts’ average estimate of $33.06 billion, while its earnings per share (EPS) remained at $1.15, meeting expectations.