The stock market soared on Monday as Pfizer unveiled surprisingly positive news that its COVID-19 vaccine candidate appears to be far more effective than anticipated.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average on Monday climbed over 1,000 points after Pfizer said that an interim analysis showed that the COVID-19 vaccine it's developing is over 90 percent effective, CNN reports.
"At this rate, the Dow is on pace for one of its best days of the year and one of its biggest daily point gains in history," CNN writes.
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The Dow also set "its first intraday record since February," prior to when markets crashed in March as the coronavirus pandemic hit the U.S., The Wall Street Journal reports. "Cruise operators, airlines and mall owners were also among the market's biggest winners," The Associated Press writes. Experts have noted, though, that it will be months into 2021 before any coronavirus vaccine could become widely available in the United States if it's ultimately approved by the Food and Drug Administration.
The stock market's surge also came after on Saturday, former Vice President Joe Biden officially became president-elect, as news outlets called the 2020 presidential race in his favor.
"We all sort of knew that November would be a pretty important period for last stage news on the three main vaccines," NatWest Markets strategist James McCormick told The Wall Street Journal. "The news is clearly pretty positive. We've got the election past us and now the market is focusing on what’s next."
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