Despite investor focus on the prospective policy implications of the Biden presidency, the vaccine for COVID-19 is a more important determinant of the path of both the economy and stock market in 2021. The positive preliminary phase 3 trial results from PFE revealed that its COVID-19 vaccine exhibited an efficacy rate greater than 90%, well above what many medical experts had anticipated. However, the timing was consistent with the expectation by Goldman Sachs Biotechnology and Pharmaceutical equity analysts that a vaccine would be identified before year-end. We expect the PFE vaccine, and perhaps other vaccine candidates, will receive emergency use authorization (EUA) by January, and sufficient doses will be available to vaccinate the US population during the first-half of 2021.
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David Llewellyn-Smith is Chief Strategist at the MB Fund and MB Super. David is the founding publisher and editor of MacroBusiness and was the founding publisher and global economy editor of The Diplomat, the Asia Pacific’s leading geo-politics and economics portal.
He is also a former gold trader and economic commentator at The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, the ABC and Business Spectator. He is the co-author of The Great Crash of 2008 with Ross Garnaut and was the editor of the second Garnaut Climate Change Review.
