As the weeks go by, the timeline for a coronavirus vaccine is getting shorter and driving optimism.
The Nasdaq Composite hit a record Wednesday, as the S&P 500 rose for the third straight day. This happened even with the Covid-19 pandemic growing in multiple states, and on the same day California and New York rolled back plans to allow restaurants to serve customers indoors.
Anyone looking for a convergence between markets and the state of the economy can point to the pullback in travel-related stocks since the growth in the number of coronavirus cases in Arizona, Florida and Texas began in early June. But with Wednesday bringing good news about a vaccine candidate from Pfizer Inc. and BioNtech SE, and with Phase 3 trials for other vaccines set to begin this month, we could begin seeing an even bigger divergence between the real-time economic data and a rosier future priced in by markets.
Up until now, there’s an argument that markets have largely followed the progression of the virus and economic momentum, even if markets are priced for a much stronger economic environment than the U. S. was experiencing at July’s onset. Stocks crashed between the latter part of February and the latter part of March as awareness grew about the spread of the virus and the U. S. saw a rolling wave of shutdowns of various forms of economic activity. Stocks bottomed on March 23, the same week that initial jobless claims peaked at 6.
