Last week was upbeat for Wall Street. The S&P 500 (up 2.64%), the Dow Jones (up 4.07%), the Nasdaq Composite (up 3.09%) and the small-cap Russell 2000 (up 7.32%) were all on an uptrend due to the passage of the $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief bill. The Dow Jones, the S&P 500 and the Russell 2000, in fact, hit new record highs.
Among other positive developments, Novavax NVAX announced very impressive updates on its protein-based COVID-19 vaccine candidate, NVX-CoV2373. The company’s vaccine candidate has delivered final efficacy of 96.4% in a pivotal phase 3 trial in the U.K., against mild, moderate and severe diseases caused by the original COVID-19 strain (read: Novavax ETFs to Shine Bright on Positive Vaccine Update).
Meanwhile, U.S. consumer prices witnessed a solid increase in February, resulting in the largest annual gain in a year, but the underlying inflation remained lukewarm amid still-sloth demand for services like airline travel. Consumer prices in the United States increased 0.4% sequentially in February, slightly higher than 0.3% in January but matching market forecasts. The increase in the gasoline index (+6.4%) made up more than half of CPI gain (read: U.S. Consumer Inflation Moderate: ETFs to Win).
While moderate inflation data kept U.S….
