The Pfizer announcement and the effects on Wall Street

The vaccine race seems to have finally come to an end thanks to the announcement of the US pharmaceutical company Pfizer. The company announced that its Covi-19 vaccine has reached 90% efficacy in the third phase and now the entire world is hoping to start again a normal life. 

Today the European Commission will authorize the signing of the contract for the purchase of a maximum of 300 million doses of the vaccine, Italy will receive 13.5% of the total based on the population density (approximately 27 million doses). 

According to the sources, the vaccine could be available in Italy at the beginning of next year, but for the moment there are problems for the vaccines transport and storage and the European Union will first have to deal with the logistical and administrative obstacles. 

As expected, the long-awaited news of the vaccine messed up the world markets. Some stocks (such as cars, cruises and consumer goods) are increasing, whereas sectors that benefited from the pandemic are now experiencing a downturn. While Amazon, Facebook and Microsoft suffered a soft decline, Zoom, one of the most used platforms for videoconferencing, fell 13.4% on Wall Street and Netflix, which in recent months has benefited from the closure of theatres and cinemas, fell by 7%. Another example is Diasorin, a leading company in the production of diagnostic tests, which felt the blow by falling down. 

In the coming months we will understand if the decreases occurred in the last few days will only be temporary or if they will last over time.