(For a Reuters live blog on U.S., UK and European stock
markets, click LIVE/ or type LIVE/ in a news window)
* Airlines, cruise operators soar on vaccine trial news
* Oil and bank shares jump
* Stay-at-home winners underperform
* Dow up 4.8%, S&P 3.1%, Nasdaq trails with 0.8% gain
(Updates to early afternoon)
By Medha Singh and Shivani Kumaresan
Nov 9 (Reuters) - Wall Street's main indexes hit record
highs on Monday as the first successful data from a late-stage
COVID-19 vaccine trial spurred hopes of the economy recovering
quickly from a year of pandemic-driven crisis.
Oil prices surged more than 8% and U.S. Treasuries sold off
after U.S. drugmaker Pfizer PFE.N and its German partner
BioNTech BNTX.O said data from the large-scale trial of their
vaccine showed it was more than 90% effective in preventing
COVID-19. O/R US/
"This (news) is extremely important and should give the
market confidence that Pfizer's candidate offers a breakthrough
in terms of reaching herd immunity at some point next year,"
said Robin Winkler, strategist at Deutsche Bank Research.
With Joe Biden's clinching over the weekend of a
tightly-fought presidential election also fuelling gains, the
blue-chip Dow surged as much as 5.7%.
The companies hit hardest by months of travel bans and
lockdowns soared. Boeing Co BA.N jumped 14%, while airlines
.XAL and cruise line operators NCLH.N CCL.N were trading
between 18% and 35% higher.
Pfizer and BioNTech said they had found no serious safety
concerns so far and expected to seek U.S. emergency use
authorization later this month. "There are questions left in terms of how quickly Pfizer can
get their vaccine to markets all around the world," said Mike
Bailey, director of research, FBB Capital Partners, Maryland.
"But today's market move suggests... we checked a box in
terms of reducing some risk as we look ahead in terms of
economy."
At 12:41 p.m. ET, the Dow Jones Industrial Average .DJI
rose 1,323.71 points or 4.67%, the S&P 500 .SPX gained 109.77
points or 3.13% while the Russell 2000 small-cap index .RUT
leaped 5.6% to an all-time high.
The S&P energy index .SPNY was on course for its best day
since April, while bank shares .SPXBK , often seen as a proxy
for the broader economy, jumped about 13%.
In contrast, shares in technology and other companies seen
as "stay-at-home" winners in the pandemic were lower or made
limited gains.
Netflix Inc NFLX.O fell 5.8% and Amazon.com Inc AMZN.O
2.8%, while Zoom Video ZM.O and exercise bike maker Peloton
Interactive Inc PTON.O> plunged more than 13%, limiting the
tech-heavy Nasdaq's .IXIC gains to 0.8%.
World stocks scaled a record high earlier in the day and the
dollar remained weak as expectations of better global trade ties
and more monetary stimulus under President-elect Biden lifted
demand for risky assets. MKTS/GLOB
Treasury yields had fallen last week on expectations that
Biden would win the White House, but the Senate would be
controlled by Republicans, potentially stifling a fiscal
stimulus package and putting the onus back on the Federal
Reserve.
Biogen Inc BIIB.O slumped about 30% as a panel of experts
to the U.S. health regulator voted against the drugmaker
experiment Alzheimer's treatment. Advancing issues outnumbered decliners 4.6-to-1 on the NYSE
and 2.9-to-1 on the Nasdaq.
The S&P index recorded 140 new 52-week highs and one new
low, while the Nasdaq recorded 385 new highs and 20 new lows.