US markets end higher amid reports of progress on coronavirus vaccine trials

27 Aug 2020 Evaluate

The US markets ended higher on Wednesday with S&P 500 and Nasdaq settling at fresh records amid reports of progress on coronavirus vaccine trials and expectations for the Federal Reserve to signal it will keep monetary policy easy in a speech by Chairman Jerome Powell on Thursday. Biotechnology company Moderna announced promising results from a small trial of its coronavirus vaccine candidate in elderly patients. Moderna told a government advisory committee that its experimental vaccine produced neutralizing antibodies and appeared to be well tolerated. A falling trend in the number of new coronavirus infections in the US has been credited with pushing stocks to new highs. The S&P 500 scored its 18th record close of the year and the Nasdaq marked its 39th all-time closing high of 2020. Meanwhile, the Dow closed within 1% of going positive for the year after the coronavirus-induced turbulence in March.

Besides, the strength on markets partly reflected optimism about the outlook for the economy after a report from the Commerce Department showed durable goods orders spiked by much more than expected in the month of July. The Commerce Department said durable goods orders skyrocketed by 11.2 percent in July after surging up by a revised 7.7 percent in June. Street had expected durable goods orders to increase by 4.3 percent compared to the 7.6 percent jump that had been reported for the previous month. The bigger than expected leap in durable goods orders was primarily due to a sharp increase in orders for transportation equipment, which soared by 35.6 percent.

Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 83.48 points or 0.3 percent to 28,331.92, Nasdaq gained 198.59 points or 1.73 percent 11,665.06 and S&P 500 was up by 35.11 points or 1.02 percent to 3,478.73. 

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