Airline stocks blast off after upbeat news on potential COVID-19 vaccine
Tomi Kilgore
American Airlines stock leads the sector with a 25% premarket rally
Shares of airline companies blasted off Monday, after upbeat news on a potential COVID-19 vaccine candidate from Pfizer Inc. and BioNTech SE gave investors hope for a quick recovery in business and leisure travel.
The U.S. Global Jets exchange-traded fund (JETS) shot up 18.9% in premarket trading, putting it on track to open at the highest price seen during regular-session hours in five months.
The air carrier rally comes amid a big surge in the broader stock market, with futures for the Dow Jones Industrial Average soaring nearly 1,500 points, or 5.3%. See Market Snapshot (https://www.marketwatch.com/story/dow-futures-soar-1-500-points-after-pfizer-biontech-say-coronavirus-vaccine-candidate-90-effective-11604924582).
American Airlines Group Inc.'s (AAL) stock paced the sectors gainers, rocketing 23.8% toward a three-month high on volume of about 11 million shares.
Among other more-active air carrier shares, United Airlines Holdings Inc. (UAL) ran up 17.1%, Delta Air Lines Inc. (DAL) powered up 18.1%, Spirit Airlines Inc. (SAVE) surged 21.1%, Southwest Airlines Co. (LUV) hiked up 15.7% and JetBlue Airways Corp. (JBLU) rallied 18.0%.
Earlier, Pfizer (PFE) and BioNTech (BNTX) said their COVID-19 vaccine candidate BNT162b2 achieved "success" (https://www.marketwatch.com/story/biontech-pfizer-stocks-soar-after-covid-19-vaccine-candidate-achieves-success-in-first-analysis-2020-11-09) in the first interim analysis from a Phase 3 study, as it was found 90% effective in preventing COVID-19 in trial participants without previous evidence of SARS-CoV-2 infection.
Airlines had been among the hardest hit sectors by the COVID-19 pandemic. Although travel has steadily increased since April, a recent surge in new cases (https://www.marketwatch.com/story/coronavirus-tally-global-cases-of-covid-19-top-50-million-with-us-case-tally-near-10-million-2020-11-09) has led to new lockdowns in Europe and raised fears of similar moves in the U.S.
The Jets ETF has gained 6.6% over the past three months through Friday, but was still down 43.7% year to date. In comparison, the S&P 500 index has tacked on 4.7% the past three months and has advanced 8.6% this year.
-Tomi Kilgore; 415-439-6400; AskNewswires@dowjones.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
November 09, 2020 08:04 ET (13:04 GMT)
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