The news of the COVID-19 vaccine from Pfizer and BioNTech for testing efficacy of over 90% helped the US stock market flood in the first session of the week. While Asian markets gained because of the US election results.
In a statement released on 9-11, pharmaceutical company Pfizer (USA) and BioNTech (based in Germany) said that the COVID-19 vaccine jointly developed by these two companies was up to 90% effective in the period. 3 human trials.
This is also the last stage of testing before being licensed and put into mass production.
Preliminary analysis showed that the vaccine showed protective effects 7 days after volunteers were given a second dose and 28 days after the first dose.
A total of 43,000 volunteers participated in the trial and received 2 doses, either an experimental vaccine or a placebo for the control.
Pfizer and BioNTech hope the vaccine will be licensed by US authorities for large-scale emergency use for people 16-85 years old. To do that, these companies need to provide data proving vaccines are safe with at least 50% of the 43,000 volunteers participating.
If licensed, the two firms claim they can produce 50 million doses of vaccine by the end of this year and 1.3 billion doses by 2021.
However, there are some transport challenges as COVID-19 vaccine must be stored in frozen temperatures below -80 degrees Celsius.
The stock market reacts positively
Immediately after the information above, Pfizer shares on the New York Stock Exchange rose 6% while BioNTech stocks also increased 18% in the US market.
Other major indexes in the US market also received positive information and responded. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 5.6% or 1,500 points, the S&P 500 also added 4.5%, and the Nasdaq increased slightly by 0.7%.
Asian and European stock markets also reacted positively in the first trading session of the week on 9-11 but for other reasons. The main indexes were up 1.5-2% before the US media identified Joe Biden as president-elect.
Closing the first session of the week, the Nikkei 225 on the Tokyo Stock Exchange (Japan) increased by more than 2%, setting a record high in 29 years. The Topix index increased 23.41 points, or 1.41%, to close at 1,681.90 points.
The rally was recorded in most major Asian exchanges, from Hong Kong, Shanghai (China) to Sydney (Australia) and Singapore.