Stocks pulled back after big gains on Monday, as a tech-led rally to start the week gave way to a tech-led retreat. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 143 points, or about 0.5%, to finish at 31,391.
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Merck, J&J to team up. In a rare collaboration between pharmaceutical giants and direct competitors, Merck (ticker: MRK) will join forces with Johnson & Johnson ( JNJ) to help manufacture JNJ’s newly approved one-shot vaccine.
This is a positive macroeconomic development that is expected to help produce enough vaccines for all Americans to get the vaccine by the end of May. JNJ’s one-shot vaccine is the first single-dose vaccine to gain approval.
Rocket shorts “crashing and burning.” In another frenzied, somewhat random rally driven by an excess of short interest, shares of Rocket Companies ( RKT) surged more than 71% on Tuesday. The bullish interest in the online mortgage company is again partially driven by Reddit’s now-famous WallStreetBets thread, the same group of traders that helped boost so-called “meme stocks” like GameStop ( GME) and AMC Entertainment Holdings ( AMC) mere weeks ago.
Fox jumps. Shares of media and entertainment giant Fox Corp. ( FOXA) surged 9.1% on Tuesday, with the stock finishing as the single best performer in the S&P 500. February viewership numbers for Fox News came in, and the channel once again returned to the top of the heap among its competitors in the prime time news network category.
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RKT Stock Jumps 71% originally appeared on usnews.com
