The Nasdaq Composite rose by 1.5%, gaining 277 points on Monday afternoon, spurred by President Joe Biden’s withdrawal from the presidential race on Sunday and his endorsement of Vice President Kamala Harris. In the same timeframe, the Dow Jones Industrial Average and S&P 500 saw increases of 0.3% and 1.1%, respectively.
The crypto-based betting platform Polymarket sees Harris as the leading Democratic nominee for president, while PredictIt, a New Zealand-based betting site, anticipates she will become the 47th president of the United States.
In other market news, Nvidia’s stock climbed 4% in the afternoon after reports emerged that the company is working on a version of its new Blackwell AI chips for the Chinese market. Nvidia is expected to collaborate with the local firm Inspur to launch the chip, provisionally named “B20,” projected to begin shipping in the second quarter of 2025. Nvidia did not provide further comments on the matter.
Tesla’s shares spiked nearly 5% ahead of its earnings report, where CEO Elon Musk is expected to discuss the company’s postponed robotaxi rollout. Musk indicated on social media that Tesla plans to produce useful humanoid robots for internal use next year, with plans for broader production for other companies by 2026.
CrowdStrike, the cybersecurity company linked to a recent global tech outage, is still recovering from the incident. The company reported that many of the approximately 8.5 million Windows devices affected are gradually coming back online. However, CrowdStrike’s stock price fell over 13% Monday afternoon to around $263.
Verizon experienced a sharp decline of nearly 6% following its quarterly earnings report. The telecommunications company fell short of revenue expectations as customers are holding onto their old phones longer, impacting the upgrade rates tied to their promotional plans. Verizon reported second-quarter revenue of $32.8 billion, slightly below the analysts’ average estimate of $33.06 billion, with earnings per share matching expectations at $1.15.