Novo Nordisk, the company behind Ozempic, is testing a new anti-obesity pill that has shown promising results in early trials. This news comes at a time when the stock market is responding to political developments, with the Nasdaq rising 1.5% and gaining 277 points following President Joe Biden’s decision to withdraw from the presidential race and endorse Vice President Kamala Harris. The Dow Jones Industrial Average and S&P 500 also made gains of 0.3% and 1.1%, respectively.
In the realm of politics, the betting platform Polymarket has suggested that Harris will be the Democratic nominee for president, while PredictIt, based in New Zealand, predicts she could become the 47th president of the United States.
In corporate news, Nvidia’s stock rose by 4% after reports emerged that the semiconductor giant is working on a version of its Blackwell AI chips targeted at the Chinese market. Collaborating with a local partner, Inspur, Nvidia is expected to launch the new chip, provisionally named the “B20,” projected to ship by the second quarter of 2025, although the company has refrained from commenting officially.
Tesla’s share price surged nearly 5% ahead of its earnings report, where CEO Elon Musk is expected to discuss updates on the much-anticipated robotaxi project. On social media, Musk shared that Tesla is on track to produce useful humanoid robots next year, with hopes for broader production in 2026.
Meanwhile, CrowdStrike is still facing the aftermath of a recent major tech outage that affected approximately 8.5 million Windows devices. The company reported that many of the impacted systems are returning online, although its stock remains down over 13%, trading around $263.
Verizon also faced difficulties, with its stock dropping nearly 6% following the release of its quarterly earnings report. The communications giant fell short of revenue expectations, reporting $32.8 billion compared to the anticipated $33.06 billion, attributed to customers retaining older devices for longer periods, which has affected upgrade rates in the industry. Despite this, Verizon’s earnings per share (EPS) of $1.15 met analysts’ expectations.