Market Morning: AstraZeneca Vaccine Doubts, Trump Waits for Electoral College, Twitter Uncensored,
Doubts Grow About AstraZeneca Vaccine
Doubts are being raised regarding AstraZeneca’s (NASDAQ:AZN) COVID-19 vaccine. The company is probably going to do a new efficacy trial to substantiate existing data. The head of the White House’s so-called “Operation Warp Speed”, has expressed concern that maybe things are going a bit too fast, and are wary over the age group tested. Meanwhile, 4 million doses of this vaccine are slated to be distributed in the United Kingdom as soon as next month. The vaccine supposedly has 70% effectiveness at preventing infection. The U.K. government’s top scientific advisor, Patrick Vallance, said the focus should be on the fact that the vaccine actually works, rather than, presumably, safety issues, which by implication should take a back seat. “The headline result is the vaccine works and that’s very exciting,” Vallance said on Thursday. Regarding safety, he said that regulators will make an assessment with “lots of data that is not currently in the public domain.”
Trump to Concede Election of Electoral College Votes for Biden
US President Donald Trump now says he will leave the White House if the Electoral College votes for Joe Biden. “Certainly I will. Certainly I will. And you know that,” he said when asked if he would leave 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue if voted out by the group of electors. Lawsuits continue to be filed regarding election fraud in various states, but it is becoming less certain of any of these will amount to anything. In the meantime, Trump has said that he will campaign for two Republican Senate candidates on December 5 for the runoff election that will determine which party controls the Senate. The latest polls conducted on November 17th have all four candidates basically in a dead heat.
Twitter Unblocks Link To Lawsuit Against Election Certification
Lawyer Sidney Powell, who has been making waves threatening threatening to overturn the election results in several key states, had a link to her lawsuit seeking to decertify election results, blocked by Twitter (NASDAQ:TWTR) for being unsafe. Twitter has since announced that it has reversed is censorship of the link, which shows an aim to change the outcome of Georgia’s 2020 election results. Plaintiffs seek to decertify the results and have Trump declared the winner. “The URL referenced was mistakenly marked under our unsafe links policy — this action has now been reversed,” a Twitter spokesperson told fox. As this is happening, Parler, a competitor to Twitter that isn’t as heavyhanded on the censorship button, hash catapulted to #1 on the Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) app store. Whether Parler will be kept on Apple’s platform remains to be seen.
Retail Trading Volume from Young Traders Declines
Retail investor trading volumes have fallen from about 23% of all market volume in June to 16% in September. According to JPMorgan (NYSE:JPM), this raises questions about the narrative that retail traders were responsible for the summer rally in stocks. Retail volume as a percentage of total trading, however, is still historically elevated, and the dichotomy that JPMorgan is pointing out relies on a differentiation between younger and older traders, though both are retail. The decline though isn’t stopping trading services from capitalizing on the still-elevated number of retail traders entering the game. Trading platform Trust Capital TC Managing Director Farah Hawilo comments, “Our commitment is to take every possible step to deliver the best trading experience to our clients to make them feel safe and comfortable.”
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