On Monday afternoon, the Nasdaq experienced a rise of 1.5%, adding 277 points, following President Joe Biden’s announcement to withdraw from the presidential race and endorse Vice President Kamala Harris. The Dow Jones Industrial Average and S&P 500 also saw positive moves, increasing by 0.3% and 1.1%, respectively.
Polymarket, a crypto-based betting platform, now predicts Harris will be the Democratic nominee, while PredictIt, based in New Zealand, anticipates she will become the 47th president of the United States.
In other market news, Nvidia’s shares rose by 4% after reports surfaced that the company is working on a version of its new Blackwell AI chips specifically for the Chinese market. Sources indicated that Nvidia plans to partner with local distributor Inspur to launch the “B20” chip, expected to start shipping in the second quarter of 2025. Nvidia has chosen not to comment on these developments.
Tesla saw a nearly 5% increase in its stock price just one day before its earnings report. CEO Elon Musk is anticipated to discuss updates regarding the company’s postponed robotaxi launch. He mentioned on X that Tesla plans to have useful humanoid robots in low production for internal use next year, with hopes for higher production for other companies by 2026.
Meanwhile, CrowdStrike, the cybersecurity firm involved in Friday’s major tech outage, is still recovering from the incidents. The company reported that a substantial number of the approximately 8.5 million affected Windows devices are back online. However, CrowdStrike’s shares fell over 13% on Monday afternoon, trading around $263.
Verizon experienced a significant decline of nearly 6% following its quarterly earnings report, where it fell short of revenue expectations. The telecommunications giant reported second-quarter revenue of $32.8 billion, just under analysts’ average estimate of $33.06 billion. Their earnings per share remained steady at $1.15, aligning with forecasts.