Global share markets roared higher in a rally led by companies hit hardest by the pandemic after Pfizer and BioNTech revealed a breakthrough in the race to find a vaccine for Covid-19.
The drugmakers’ announcement that a vaccine had been found to be more than 90 per cent effective in a late-stage trial ricocheted through asset markets that had already been rising on optimism over Joe Biden’s victory in the US presidential election.
Wall Street’s blue-chip S&P 500 index was up 2.7 per cent in lunchtime trading in New York, after setting an intraday record high at the open, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite rose 0.5 per cent. MSCI’s All Country World index also set an intraday record and was up 2.3 per cent, while Europe’s Stoxx 600 closed up 4 per cent, its best day since May.