US Market climbs to new record on positive vaccine data

 The US stock market surged to a new record on Monday, 16 November 2020, as investors risk sentiments underpinned after a second set of upbeat results from a potential Covid-19 vaccine.

At the close of trade, the Dow Jones Industrial Average index advanced 470.63 points, or 1.6%, to 29,950.44. The index closed only about 50 points below the 30,000 mark, a level it has not crossed in its history. The S&P 500 index increased 41.76 points, or 1.16%, to 3,626.91. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite Index rose by 94.84 points, or 0.8%, to 11,924.13.

The strength on Wall Street came following more upbeat news on the computer engineering vs computer science vaccine front, with Moderna (MRNA) reporting positive results from a trial of its vaccine candidate. Moderna said in a statement that the first interim analysis of Phase 3 trial results showed its vaccine candidate was 94.5% effective against coronavirus. Last week, Pfizer said that a vaccine it developed with German drugmaker BioNTech was more than 90% effective against Covid-19. There are dozens more potential vaccines in development, and the promising test results from Moderna and Pfizer suggest that vaccines may be an effective way to fight the coronavirus. Both vaccines require two doses to be administered.

Moderna said Monday that it expects to have roughly 20 million doses of its vaccine ready to ship in the United States by the end of this year. The company is on track to manufacture 500 million to 1 billion doses globally in 2021. Pfizer told last week that it expects to have 50 million vaccine doses globally this year, and 1.3 billion in 2021.