- The Dow Jones Industrial Average added 834.57 points or 2.95%, refreshed record high to 29,933.83.
- The S&P 500 put on 40.29 points or 1.15%, marked fresh all-time peak of 3,645.99.
- The Nasdaq Composite trimmed 181.45 points or 1.53%.
Wall Street benchmarks, mainly the DJI30 and the S&P 500, cheered the news of coronavirus (COVID-19) vaccine having 90% effectiveness before initially nurturing the market optimism, led by hopes of further stimulus from Joe Biden & Company. The surge in the actual cases seemed irrelevant for market players.
Not only the US-based Pfizer but Germany’s BioNTech also announced a 90% success ratio of their vaccines to tame the deadly virus, with limited experimental restrictions. These were by far the most promising numbers and renewed hopes that the pandemic can be tamed soon.
As a result, DJI30 and S&P 500 both refreshed record highs by the end of Monday’s North American trading, before closing around 29,157 and 3,550 respectively. However, Nasdaq came out as a spoiler that lost over 1.0% by Monday’s end and refrained from changing the previous all-time peak marked above 12,450 in September.
While there haven’t been any major fresh negatives that Nasdaq had to bear, losses by the equities that rallied during the covid times, like Facebook, Netflix and Zoom, could be traced as the major catalyst behind the risk-barometer’s downbeat performance.
Although the vaccine hopes are likely to keep the traders hopeful, caution is warranted as the results had fewer restrictions while experimented and the vaccine outcome may take few more months before reaching the customers. Meanwhile, the COVID-19 pushes New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy to announce local lockdowns, which in-turn becomes the turn towards the UK’s second round of activity restrictions and will dim the mood if acted.
Moving on, traders will keep eyes on risk catalysts amid a lack of major data/events for fresh impetus. Donald Trump’s efforts to keep the White House seems to gain a little attention as Biden becomes the market favorite. Though, the decision on Senate control will be the key.
Read: Forex Today: Dollar soars, Wall Street reaches record highs on fresh coronavirus vaccine hopes
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