Moderna, BioNTech stocks surge after regulators halt use of J&J vaccine
Shares of Moderna Inc. shot up 8.6% in morning trading, BioNTech SE ran up 5.7% toward a 4-month high and Pfizer Inc. climbed 1.1% toward a 3-month high, after U.S. health regulators paused the use of Johnson & Johnson's COVID-19 vaccine "out of an abundance of caution" as a result of rare blood clotting cases. Meanwhile, J&J shares shed $2.98, or 1.8%, to shave about 20 points of the Dow Jones Industrial Average's price, as the Dow dropped 132 points, or 0.4%. Moderna's two-dose COVID-19 vaccine, and the two-dose vaccine from Pfizer and partner BioNTech are mRNA vaccines while J&J's one-dose vaccine is an adenovirus vaccine. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Food and Drug Administration said there have been six cases of blood clotting out of the roughly six million people who have received the J&J vaccine, all of who were women between the ages of 18 and 48.
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