Shares Shoot Up 13% after Moderna Announces Developments In Its Vaccine, One Week After Pfizer

Despite the world only being 10 months into the most devastating pandemic of the 21^st Century, two pharmaceutical companies have already announced that they are close to releasing a vaccine. A week ago, Pfizer announced that they are releasing a vaccine with a 90% success rate, and just yesterday, Moderna announced that its vaccine has up to 94.5% effectiveness.

“The markets surged on the Moderna vaccine news. Having multiple providers with 90-plus percent efficacy boosted investors’ enthusiasm. The vaccine takes timing, one of the biggest uncertainties, off the table,” commented Jack Ablin, chief investment officer at Cresset Capital.

Following Pfizer’s announcement last week, Moderna confirmed that its vaccine could be just as effective as that of Pfizer’s. This was met with a turbulent reaction from financial markets; shares soared 8%. When Moderna released a statement demonstrating the practically 100% success rate of its vaccine, Wall Street rose 9%.

Moderna’s share price itself has been highly affected by its works in developing the vaccine against COVID-19, with a whopping 350% growth rate this year.

Stocks continued to surge on Monday, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the S&P 500 closing at track record highs. Dow Jones ended the day up 1.6%, while S&P rose 1.2% and Nasdaq finished at 0.8%.

“The global population couldn’t have asked for more from the Moderna vaccine,” commented Seema Shah, chief strategist at Principal Global Advisers. She believes that the news “should solidify the market rally that has been in play since last week.”

Ms. Shah added, “Today’s vaccine news should make investors more tolerant of the surging virus cases, permitting them to look through to the strong dynamics that seem to be taking shape for 2021.”

Airlines and leisure companies, the industries affected the most by the pandemic, found their share prices resurrect. Royal Caribbean Cruises rose 7%, while Delta Air Lines surged 4.2%. One the other hand, the stocks that have previously benefited from the Great Lockdown found themselves declining. Video conferencing tool, Zoom, lost 1.1%, while Netflix lost 0.8%

Quick timeline of Moderna’s work against COVID-19:

January 11^th 2020: Chinese authorities provide Moderna and other pharma giants with genetic sequence of the novel coronavirus.
February 7^th 2020: First batch of mRNA-1273 is completed and approved for clinical trials by March 4^th.
March 16^th2020: First participant in the human trial was dosed by mRNA-1273.
April 16^th2020: $483 million was awarded to Moderna to accelerate development of mRNA-1273 and enable large-scale production as part of the pandemic response.
May 12^th 2020: Moderna received FDA Fast Track designation for mRNA-1273.
August 11^th 2020: Moderna received FDA Fast Track designation for mRNA-1273.
September 8^th 2020: Moderna signs to pledge to continue contributing to the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic and marks it top priority.
October 22^nd 2020: Moderna completed enrollment of the Phase 3 study of mRNA-1273.

“Visibility towards a return to normality is increasing, and this should provide more fuel to the reflation rally, with small-caps, value and cyclicals clear beneficiaries.” – Seema Shah, chief strategist at Principal Global Investors

The COVID-19 pandemic has affected practically every person, in every country across the globe. At the time of writing, there have been over 55 million cases and over 1.3 million lives lost.