The Dow Jones now is taking a dip despite news that the U.S. government pumped large amounts of money into a program designed to accelerate the production of a COVID-19 vaccine.
Still, tech stocks were trading at new highs this morning, thanks to a rally in Amazon.com Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN). More on everything moving the Dow today, below.
Here are the numbers from Monday for the Dow, S&P 500, and Nasdaq:
Index
Previous Close
Point Change
Percentage Change
Dow Jones
26,287.03
+459.67
+1.78
S&P 500
3,179.72
0.00
0.00
Nasdaq
10,433.65
+226.02
+2.21
Here are the most important market events and stories that I'm following right now.
The Top Stock Market Stories for Tuesday
On Tuesday, the number of COVID-19 cases in the United States topped 2.93 million, while the number of deaths sits north of 130,000. States across the country including Texas and Florida saw record levels of new cases, according to Johns Hopkins University. This morning, the headlines showed that the COVID-19 outbreak is limiting the ongoing recovery across the globe. The European Commission announced it slashed its economic outlook for both 2020 and 2021. The EU says it expects the 27-nation bloc will see a decline in GDP by 8.3% in 2020. The EU expects that the economy will rebound with a 5.8% jump in 2021. Both estimates are less optimistic than readings released back in May.
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Meanwhile, shares are pushing higher on good news in the biotech industry. Shares of Novavax Inc. (NASDAQ: NVAX) rallied more than 35% after news emerged that the U.S. government would provide $1.6 billion in funding from "Operational Warp Speed," a government program dedicated to fast-tracking delivery for a COVID-19 vaccine. The program aims to deliver 100 million doses of a vaccine by the end of the year.
Finally, the United States is exploring more ways to limit data and privacy concerns tied to Chinese technology firms. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Monday that the American government may move to ban TikTok and other Chinese social media applications. Pompeo said: "We are taking this very seriously. We are certainly looking at it." TikTok is a Chinese-owned firm that censors content in the country, and its data can easily be obtained by Beijing leaders.
Stocks to Watch Today: AMZN, REGN, VSLR, RUN
Shares of Amazon.com Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN) rallied above $3,000 for the first time ever on Monday. The share price easily makes CEO and founder Jeff Bezos the richest person in the world. It now has speculators thinking that the company could go on a buying spree to boost its real estate holdings for greater distribution reach. The market capitalization of Amazon is now north of $1.5 trillion, larger than the GDP of Spain.
Shares of Regeneron Pharmaceuticals Inc. (NASDAQ: REGN) received $450 million for the development of a new antiviral drug cocktail. The company said it aims to have these drug cocktails available for distribution as soon as the end of this summer. Shares of REGN popped another 2.3% in pre-market hours.
In deal news, Vivant Solar Inc. (NASDAQ: VSLR) announced plans to purchase SunRun Inc. (NASDAQ: RUN) in a deal worth $1.46 billion. The all-stock deal will see Vivant Solar shareholders receive 0.55 shares of SunRun for each share they hold, a figure that is a premium of 10.4%.
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Garrett Baldwin is a globally recognized research economist, financial writer, consultant, and political risk analyst with decades of trading experience and degrees in economics, cybersecurity, and business from Johns Hopkins, Purdue, Indiana University, and Northwestern.