No, Covid has not been cured. But a vaccine that works may be the next best thing, which is certainly the stock market’s interpretation of Monday’s vaccine news from Pfizer. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 973 points or 3.4% by the close. Notably, though, the reaction from tech stocks was very mixed. Stocks that had rallied during the pandemic lost ground, and those that got hammered because of it perked up.
Among the biggest losers was Zoom Video, whose shares fell 17% after rallying 400% from mid-February to last Friday. It was a similar story with Peloton, a sign that investors expect the working-from-home beneficiaries to suffer now that the pandemic is over. That might be an overreaction, given how long it will take for any vaccine to be fully distributed. And even when it is, many companies expect their employees to indefinitely work remotely at least part-time.
