The major averages had a down session, with the Dow, the Nasdaq and S&P all falling. The Dow and S&P 500 rallied to close at record highs on Friday as recovery optimism remained despite the April jobs disappointment, but a surge in commodity prices, and escalating worries about inflation, weighed today 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) gained over 10% 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) fell 8.8% 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).
In other news, Duke Energy (DUK) shares were almost 3% higher after The Wall Street Journal reported that Paul Singer's Elliott Management has a stake in Duke and has been in talks with the company to add directors and possibly take other actions to boost its stock price. The news came after Duke Energy reported better-than-expected adjusted earnings for the first quarter and reiterated its fiscal 2021 earnings guidance.
Additionally, dot.LA reported that e-scooter company Bird Rides intends to go public through a merger with Switchback II Corporation (SWBK), a special purpose acquisition company. A transaction would value Bird at $2.3B, which is lower than the $2.85B valuation it achieved in the beginning of 2020, according to dot.LA.
MAJOR MOVERS: Among the noteworthy gainers was Cue Biopharma (CUE), which rose 27.7% after releasing interim clinical data on its phase 1 study of CUE-101. Also higher was Soliton (SOLY), which gained 24.5% 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 26% after reporting quarterly results and declaring a ten-for-one split of the company's common stock. Also lower was Insmed (INSM), which fell 20.2% 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: The Dow fell 34.94, or 0.10%, to 34,742.82, the Nasdaq lost 350.38, or 2.55%, to 13,401.86, and the S&P 500 declined 44.17, or 1.04%, to 4,188.43.
BioNTech
+19.02 (+10.36%)
Pfizer
+0.3 (+0.76%)
Inovio
-0.14 (-2.05%)
Novavax
-15.22 (-8.67%)
Changed symbol to MDNT
+0.22 (+1.14%)
Crowdstrike
-1.57 (-0.83%)
Palo Alto Networks
-0.985 (-0.29%)
Tenable Holdings
+0.24 (+0.65%)
Alphabet
-55.73 (-2.32%)
Alphabet
-59.4 (-2.53%)
Roku
-15.75 (-4.97%)
Ticker changed to META
-13.02 (-4.08%)
Duke Energy
+2.85 (+2.82%)
Switchback II
+0.06 (+0.60%)
Cue Biopharma
+3.21 (+28.74%)
Soliton
+4.4 (+24.44%)
AbbVie
+0.44 (+0.38%)
Trade Desk
-174.36 (-26.32%)
Insmed
-6.59 (-20.23%)