Moderna Plunges – Erases All Vaccine-Hope Gains

But, but, but… 8 healthy young people didn’t die when given the MRNA vaccine candidate!!!

MRNA shares have tumbled back to pre-Vaccine headline levels this morning leaving all buyers of the follow-on offering significantly underwater…

…and cue the class-action lawsuit!

As Linette Lopez wrote on Business Insider, it’s a perfect storm of stupid in the stock market right now.

Over the last few days we’ve seen two companies make coronavirus-curing headlines without even remotely having the data to back it up. The most impactful headlines were about Moderna, a company that claimed its vaccine was getting a positive immune response in human trials on Monday morning.

The market lost it’s mind on that news. The company’s stock jumped 26%. Moderna’s CEO, Stephane Blancel, did a victory lap interview for a credulous Joe Kernan on CNBC. Literally overnight the company raised $1.4 billion. The whole market rallied. It was a true Cinderella story.

It took a full 24 hours before the market actually read Moderna’s clinical trial, which cited COVID-19 antibodies forming in only eight subjects. The market also noticed that the National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases, which was partnering with the company, did not release an endorsement of the company’s findings as it usually does.

Once the market digested all of that Moderna’s stock fell over 10% and the market went with it. No one did their homework, and no one has since apologized. Welcome to Wall Street. The market didn’t learn its lesson either. On Wednesday Inovio Pharmaceuticals announced that its COVID-19 vaccine was producing positive results in animals and that it expected data in the coming weeks. The stock jumped over 8%.

The pharmaceutical industry was already opaque and scammy. Now suddenly everyone in the stock market is invested in a specific outcome from the sector. They want to be the person who scores big on a life saving treatment. In fact, they’ll be afraid to miss out opportunities. I have an extremely active subconscious, and I could not have dreamt a more perfect condition for separating investors from their money if I tried.