Is 2020 turning a corner? Investors suggested as much this Monday, building on their Biden gains with an obscene rally following the latest vaccine news.
More so than anything else at the moment – be it election news, stimulus updates, rebounding GDP readings or strong quarterly earnings – the biggest market-mover is a positive vaccine update. Doesn’t matter where from; doesn’t even really matter how positive.
Well, Monday saw the mother of all headlines. In maybe the single most promising statement since the need for a preparation emerged, the interim results of the large-scale Pfizer/BioNTech trials has reportedly shown a 90% effectiveness, far surpassing the forecasts of most experts.
And though the ecstatic press release needs to be caveated – there are many steps yet until it can be mass-produced, and then implemented – investors weren’t interested in nuance or caution.
Instead they went stratospheric. The Dow Jones, already cheery thanks to the election result, climbed 1,200 points. That’s right – one thousand two hundred points in a single session. Bounding higher, the index struck 29,550, finally shooting past the all-time record struck in February. And that’s not to mention the fact that it actually hit an intra-day peak of 30,000-plus.
On a percentage gains-basis, the Dow Jones was actually the most sluggish of the major Western indices. For comparison, the DAX climbed 5.2% to a near 4-week high of 13,100, while the CAC was off its leash, surging 7.6% to 5330.
The FTSE was closer to its German cousin, adding 5.1%, or 300 points. That puts the UK index above 6200 for the first time since August 14th; unlike the Dow, however, it is still around 1,500 points off its all-time highs.
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