Brief : Moderna Inc. briefly soared above a $100 billion valuation on Wednesday as vaccinations against the Covid-19 virus continue to ramp up across the globe. Shares of the drug developer rose as much as 6.1% to $249.50 amid a broader rally in the stock market. Moderna has surged more than 220% over the past 12 months as drugmakers raced to develop a vaccine against the coronavirus. The first shots were advanced in record time with Moderna’s inoculation getting emergency use authorization in the U.S. in December, just a week behind the first approval for Pfizer Inc. and BioNTech SE’s vaccine. The breakthrough has helped vault the biotech firm to a household name as Americans identify the jab they received by the company name, “Pfizer” or “Moderna.” In late June, Moderna’s shot was cleared for importation in India where the delta variant has taken hold. Other vaccines authorized in the South Asian country include ones from AstraZeneca Plc, Bharat Biotech International Ltd. and Russia’s Sputnik V.
Brief: The latest Hedge Fund Confidence Index – published jointly by the Alternative Investment Management Association, Simmons & Simmons and Seward & Kissel – shows industry optimism continued to grow in the second quarter of 2021, having earlier surged 40 per cent in Q1. The data shows hedge funds’ optimism for the coming 12 months is now at “the highest it has been for many years”, AIMA, Simmons & Simmons and Seward & Kissel observed. The AIMA Hedge Fund Confidence Index (HFCI) is a quarterly measure of hedge fund firms’ confidence in the economic prospects of their business over the next 12 months. Roughly 300 hedge funds, collectively managing some USD1 trillion in assets, are quizzed on their capital-raising, revenue-generation and cost-managing prospects, along with the overall performance outlook of their funds for the coming year. They then score their confidence levels on a scale of +50 (the highest level of economic confidence) to -50 (the lowest), with 0 indicating a neutral level of confidence.
Brief: The cost of hotel and motel accommodations in the U.S. surged 7.9% in June from a month earlier, the second-largest gain on record, the Labor Department’s consumer price index data showed Tuesday. That marked the fourth straight monthly advance and pushed the price index back above where it was before the pandemic. The government figures jibe with industry data showing revenue per available room, which combines occupancy and prices, is finally surpassing pre-Covid levels. So-called RevPar increased 43% in Phoenix during the week ended July 3, compared with the same period in 2019, the highest among major markets, according to data from lodging analytics firm STR. New Orleans and San Francisco notched the steepest declines. “There’s really not much in the way of discounts for hotels, especially the ones people want to stay in,” said Lukas Hartwich, an analyst at Green Street. “There’s a lot of pent-up demand for leisure hotels. ”U.S. hotels recorded the lowest occupancy rates on record in 2020, as the pandemic kept travelers at home and ate up lodging industry profits.
Brief : JPMorgan Chase & Co. CEO Jamie Dimon said COVID-19 appears to be "in the rear-view mirror" for American consumers, who are emerging from the pandemic with more money in their pockets and the desire to spend it. During his second-quarter earnings call with investors on Tuesday, Dimon was asked for his take on how things look today amid talk of "peak inflation" and "peak growth" compared to 2011 or so as the U.S. emerged from the financial crisis from a few years prior. "I think they are completely different, fundamentally," Dimon replied, saying, "coming out of the '09 crisis, the world was massively over-leveraged…the consumer was over-leveraged, companies were over-leveraged." The CEO said that is not the case today."The pump is primed," Dimon said on the call. "The consumer, their house value is up, their stock values are up, their incomes are up, their savings are up, their confidence is up, the pandemic is kind of in the rear-view mirror – hopefully, nothing gets worse with it."
Brief: After an unprecedented year, what one word best sums up the equity markets of Latin America? “Busy,” according to Carlos Sequeira, head of research at BTG Pactual. While the region as a whole was largely impacted both socially and economically by Covid-19, each country from Brazil to Chile reacted very differently to the pandemic. This is in part due to global monetary policy, as well as each country’s individual government stimulus plans. With just as varied economic recoveries — despite virus surges — throughout the region, there is cautious optimism across the investment chain in Latin America. But another looming election cycle means there is no downtime for the region’s sell side — or their clients. “From a market perspective, the countries in Latin America rebounded quite quickly from the shutdowns during the pandemic with tons of transactions,” Sequeira said. “Clients, as well as us, have been very busy with all of the IPOs coming to market.”