In a significant market movement on Monday afternoon, the Nasdaq rose by 1.5%, equating to a gain of 277 points, following President Joe Biden’s announcement to withdraw from the presidential race and endorse Vice President Kamala Harris. Both the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the S&P 500 experienced increases of 0.3% and 1.1%, respectively.
The crypto-based betting platform Polymarket has shown support for Harris as the Democratic nominee for president, while PredictIt, based in New Zealand, forecasts that she will become the 47th president of the United States.
In tech developments, Nvidia saw its shares rise by 4% after Reuters revealed that the company is working on a version of its new Blackwell AI chips specifically for the Chinese market. Nvidia plans to collaborate with local distributor Inspur to launch the chip, referred to as the “B20,” with shipments expected in the second quarter of 2025. Nvidia has not provided any comments on the matter.
Tesla’s stock jumped nearly 5% as the company approaches its earnings report. CEO Elon Musk is anticipated to give updates on delays regarding the company’s robotaxi unveiling. Musk stated on X on Monday that Tesla plans to have useful humanoid robots in limited production for internal use next year and to start high production for external companies in 2026.
Meanwhile, CrowdStrike, the cybersecurity firm responsible for the recent global tech outage, is starting to recover from the incident. The company reported that of the approximately 8.5 million affected Windows devices, many are now back online. However, CrowdStrike’s stock fell over 13% in afternoon trading, hovering around $263.
Verizon experienced a sharp decline of nearly 6% after releasing its quarterly earnings report. The telecommunications giant fell short of revenue expectations, attributed to customers retaining their old phones for longer, which has negatively affected upgrade rates for telecom companies. Verizon reported second-quarter revenue of $32.8 billion, slightly below analysts’ expectations of $33.06 billion, with earnings per share (EPS) meeting forecasts at $1.15.