Stocks rallied on Wednesday, recovering from a tech-led pullback over the previous week. Despite this news already being fairly well understood by most market participants, Wall Street breathed a sigh of relief upon hearing Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell double down on the central bank’s commitment to low interest rates and continued asset purchases.
More good news on the vaccine front could also be stimulating prices; Novavax (ticker: NVAX) has a potential game-changing vaccine working its way toward authorization, and approval for Johnson & Johnson’s ( JNJ) looks imminent (more on that below).
The Dow Jones Industrial Average hit a new closing record on Wednesday, soaring 424 points, or about 1.4%, to finish at 31,961.
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J&J single-shot vaccine coming. It looks highly likely that an approval from the Food and Drug Administration for Johnson & Johnson’s one-shot coronavirus vaccine is in the near future, and perhaps as soon as this weekend.
J&J’s manufacturing capacity, coupled with the fact that it would be the first one-shot dose available in the U.S., make its looming approval a meaningful step in the fight against the pandemic. The FDA announced on Wednesday that J&J’s vaccine is safe and effective, and the vaccine may also reduce the risk of asymptomatic spread.
Guess who’s back? GameStop ( GME) is back to its wacky, volatile ways. Shares of the imperiled video game retailer more than doubled on Wednesday, soaring 104% to finish at $91.71. The rally mostly came late in the afternoon, sparking several trading halts.
Late Tuesday, the company announced that its CFO would be leaving, but it’s unclear what else specifically could have sparked the rally. In after-hours action on Wednesday, the stock continued to rise precipitously, nearly doubling again and getting back above $180.
Fisker soaring. Shares of electric vehicle company Fisker ( FSR), which has yet to produce a car, jumped more than 38% on Tuesday after an announcement that the company had reached an agreement with China’s Foxconn to assist in the manufacture of its vehicles.
Foxconn, which is best known as Apple’s ( AAPL) largest partner in the assembly of iPhones and iPads, is a major get for the up-and-coming electric vehicle manufacturer, as investors clearly signaled with Wednesday’s price jump.
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GameStop Doubles, Fisker Reaches EV Deal originally appeared on usnews.com
