Pfizer Soars With Covid-19 Vaccine Announcement

Pharmaceutical giant Pfizer (PFE) brought welcoming news to global markets, announcing that their COVID-19 vaccine trials showed a 90% success rate.

Since early March this year, many pharmaceutical companies raced to find an effective vaccine against COVID-19. This renewed hope from Pfizer, together with German biotechnology firm BioNTech saw markets rally, despite not yet receiving FDA approval. Following the announcement, Pfizer soared 7.6%, leaving traders to wonder if other pharmaceutical companies will follow suit with other Coronavirus vaccines. 

Unlike Pfizer, other biotech companies took the plunge as Biogen’s (BIIB) shares dropped 28.1% and AstraZeneca (AZN.ST) shed 2.6% before recovering 2.2% during Tuesday morning’s trading. 

US Market Reaction

The announcement saw many US indices climb, such as the S&P500 (USA500) gaining +3.9% while the DJIA (USA 30 - Wall Street) jumped 2.3%.

However, some companies who gained a mid-year boost during national lockdowns dropped during Monday’s trading, such as: 

• Zoom Video Communications (ZM) -17.3%

• Peloton (PTON) -20.3%

• Slack (WORK) -4.6%

• Netflix (NFLX) -8.5%

While these popular stocks dropped, entertainment shares, such as Cinemark (CNK) jumped 45% on hopes of reopening theaters. 

Futures Rise and Fall

Some indices experienced mid afternoon losses on Monday following their morning gains, the FTSE 100 (UK100) ended the day up 3.06%, Fibi (Italy40) was up 3.24% & Spain's IBEX 35 (Spain 35) closed 7.0% higher.

Following recent losses, Oil (CL) opened at $37.3, climbing to $41.3 before tapering off and closing at 39.8, locking in a 6.7% climb during Monday’s trading.

While yesterday’s events saw markets rise and fall, it is unclear how Pfizer's announcement will affect future markets, especially in Europe which is experiencing a wave of renewed restrictions.