New Delhi: Global stock markets cheered the news of multinational drug maker Pfizer’s announcement that the Covid-19 vaccine developed by the company has a high success rate in the third stage of human trial. While in the US, Dow was up by almost 3%, S&P 500 was up by 1.17%, the only exception among major stock markets was Nasdaq which was down over 1.5% at the time of closing. Reacting to the developments, a top economist told ETV Bharat that now people are happy as they see light at the end of the tunnel in this period of doom and gloom and markets are reacting to that.
During the session, Dow and the S&P 500 touched intraday records in recent times. While Dow touched the intraday high of over 1600 points (5.7%), to reach 29,934 during the Monday, the highest since February 12 this year, the S&P 500 touched a high of 3,646, its highest since September 2 but later both the indices retreated to more moderate levels at the time of close.
“At a time when there is doom and gloom, suddenly there is light at the end of the tunnel. It comes at a time when several European countries are witnessing a second wave, which has undone whatever you have done in the past six months,” said Sunil Sinha, Chief Economist of India Ratings.
Sinha said in such a situation, everyone would welcome this kind of news, including stock markets.
“Everyone is happy and markets are kind of reacting to that,” Sinha told ETV Bharat.
On Monday, Pfizer announced that its Covid vaccine candidate had a 90% effective rate against the Covid infection, the news coupled with other developments, including the news of victory of Democrat Joseph Biden over incumbent President Donald Trump, helped rally the equity markets.
Read: Early data signals COVID-19 vaccine is effective: Pfizer
In the US, all three major market futures also opened higher. While S&P 500 futures and Dow futures opened higher by over one-third percentage points, Nasdaq futures opened more than half a percent higher.