Markets mixed, US seeing “unrelenting spread” of COVID-19

Markets were mixed on Wednesday.

The S&P 500 fell 1.2 percent but the STOXX Europe 600 rose 0.4 percent.

Earlier in Asia, the Nikkei 225 fell 0.7 percent but the Shanghai Composite rose 0.4 perecnt.

Pfizer released the final data on its vaccine candidate with BioNTech, which showed the vaccine was 95 percent effective in preventing Covid-19, better than the initial data, and fended off severe infection.

Still, the continuing surge in COVID-19 cases in the US remained a concern for investors, as deaths from the virus passed 250,000 on Wednesday.

“This is the worst rate of rise in cases that we have seen in the pandemic in the United States,” said Dr Brett Giroir, assistant secretary for health. “And, right now, there's no sign of flattening.”

Indeed, all 50 states plus Washington, DC, the US Virgin Islands and Guam reported increases in coronavirus cases on Wednesday over the past 14 days.

The White House coronavirus task force stated in its latest weekly report that there is “now aggressive, unrelenting, expanding broad community spread across the country, reaching most counties, without evidence of improvement but rather, further deterioration”.