Wall Street set to surge on news of COVID-19 vaccine effectiveness

Some heartening news on a potential treatment for the coronavirus (COVID-19) is set to light a fire under US equities. Spread betting quotes suggest the Dow Jones Industrial Average will add more than a thousand points – 1,128 to be precise – and open at around 29,451. The S&P 500 is expected to soar 107 points to 3,615 while the NASDAQ Composite is predicted to jump 371 points to 12,266. The COVID-19 vaccine being developed by Pfizer Inc (NYSE:PFE) and BioNTech was successful in preventing more than 90% of people from getting the coronavirus in a preliminary test. Pfizer and BioNTech said following the preliminary analysis that it is “a great day for science and humanity”. The apparent 90% success rate was much higher than expected. The news added extra fuel to what was already set to be a hot start for US equities in the wake of Democratic Party candidate Joe Biden’s presidential election victory last week. Biden is reportedly to set up a task force to tackle the spread of the virus, which was described as “out of control and accelerating” by Ian Shepherdson, the chief economist of Pantheon Macroeconomics. “Yesterday saw 106K cases, up 44% from Sunday last week. The trend rate of increase has now risen to about 34% per week, almost doubling over the past week. If this continues, Chart 1 below shows that by the end of the year, the US would be reporting 1.0 million cases per day, which would mean that the national picture would be nearly twice as bad as North Dakota—the worst hit state, by far—is right now,” Shepherdson said. Four things to watch for on Monday: Share price reaction from Pfizer will be in focus following its positive news on the effectiveness of its coronavirus vaccine Investors will also be eyeing McDonald’s Corp (NYSE:MCD) after the fast food giant reported quarterly earnings that topped market expectations and hiked its dividend following a sales boost from US consumers as promotions drove them back into its outlets By contrast, the news of vaccine is bad news for firms that have cashed in on lockdown, with shares in conference call specialist Zoom Video Communications Inc (NASDAQ:ZM) having taken a hit in pre-market trading in New York The macro calendar is a little threadbare on Monday, however US consumer inflation expectations for October may hold some attention. The figure is forecast to fall to 2.8% from 2.98% in September