The major averages are mixed at midday, with the Dow rising, the Nasdaq falling and the S&P 500 little changed. The Dow and S&P 500 rallied to close at record highs on Friday as recovery optimism persevered despite the April jobs disappointment, but a surge in commodity prices, and escalating worries about inflation, are weighing this morning as oil and gas prices jumped following a cyberattack and subsequent shutdown of the Colonial Pipeline that transports fuel in the U.S.
ECONOMIC EVENTS: In the U.S., WTI crude bounced to a $65.75 high overnight, up from Friday's $64.85 close, following the closure of the Colonial pipeline, which runs from Texas to New York and supplies 45% of the east coast's gasoline, jet fuel and heating oil.
TOP NEWS: Shares of BioNTech (BNTX) are 5% higher in New York trading after Pfizer's (PFE) vaccine-making partner reported its revenue grew to EUR 2.05B from EUR 27.7M in the same quarter of last year. As of May 6, BioNTech and Pfizer have shipped approximately 450 million doses of BNT162b2 to 91 countries and territories around the world and have signed orders for approximately 1.8 billion doses for delivery in 2021 to date, the German company noted.
In other COVID-19 news, Inovio Pharmaceuticals' (INO) described new Phase 2 data for INO-4800 in a press release today as "positive," but Piper Sandler analyst Christopher Raymond said the vaccine candidate performed worse than convalescent plasma across humoral immune assays. Based on these data, enrolling a Phase 3 trial may be increasingly difficult given the "lackluster results," according to the analyst.
Meanwhile, shares of Novavax (NVAX) are down 7% in midday trading after The Washington Post's Carolyn Johnson reported that the company is unlikely to seek emergency use authorization in the U.S. for its COVID-19 vaccine candidate until "June at the earliest," citing four people who have recently been briefed on the company's plans. Results from company's trial are now not expected until the end of May, the report noted.
Following news that Colonial Pipeline had been the victim of a cybersecurity attack, Goldman Sachs analyst Brian Essex noted that Reuters reported that FireEye (FEYE) was retained for incident response. While Essex expects FireEye to benefit "directly" from the event, he also sees "potential indirect support" for names such as Crowdstrike (CRWD), Palo Alto Networks (PANW) and Tenable (TENB) as news that the largest pipeline in the U.S. was shut down due to a ransomware attack could support greater awareness of risks to Operational Technology systems and the risk these systems pose within the U.S. national energy infrastructure.
Citi analyst Jason Bazinet downgraded both Alphabet (GOOGL) and Facebook (FB) to Neutral from Buy this morning as he has become "nervous" about bullish sell-side expectations. Even if the sell-side estimates are right, growth will likely decelerate after Q2 of 2021 due to tougher comps, which "historically... usually isn't bullish for multiples," added Bazinet, who now would not recommend any large cap ad-centric internet stock except Roku (ROKU).
MAJOR MOVERS: Among the noteworthy gainers was Cue Biopharma (CUE), which rose 31% after releasing interim clinical data on its phase 1 study of CUE-101. Also higher was Soliton (SOLY), which gained 25% after entering a definitive agreement to be acquired by AbbVie's (ABBV) Allergan Aesthetics for $22.60 per share in cash. AbbVie shares were up fractionally after the news.
Among the notable losers was Trade Desk (TTD), which declined 21% after reporting quarterly results and declaring a ten-for-one split of the company's common stock. Also lower was Insmed (INSM), which fell 21% after announcing it intends to offer and sell $250M of its common stock and $500M aggregate principal amount of its convertible senior notes due 2028.
INDEXES: Near midday, the Dow was up 260.50, or 0.75%, to 35,038.26, the Nasdaq was down 180.52, or 1.31%, to 13,571.72, and the S&P 500 was down 1.21, or 0.03%, to 4,231.39.
Novavax
-10.15 (-5.78%)
Alphabet
-41.39 (-1.73%)
Insmed
-6.85 (-21.03%)
Trade Desk
-136.87 (-20.66%)
AbbVie
+0.62 (+0.54%)
Soliton
+4.48 (+24.89%)
Cue Biopharma
+3.29 (+29.45%)
Changed symbol to MDNT
+0.95 (+4.92%)
Energizer
+0.47 (+0.93%)
Ticker changed to META
-10.37 (-3.25%)
Alphabet
-38.13 (-1.62%)
Inovio
+0.07 (+1.02%)
Pfizer
+0.56 (+1.42%)
BioNTech
+11.73 (+6.39%)