The U.S. jobs report revealed a moderation in payroll growth in November that will aggravate fears of a more marked slowing into year-end, but the equity market appears to remain focused on positive vaccine development and growing hopes for more fiscal stimulus. Equity index futures maintained gains and took the smaller than expected nonfarm payrolls gain in stride and the averages moved higher on Friday to close out with another week of gains.
ECONOMIC EVENTS: In the U.S., nonfarm payrolls increased 245,000 in November, which was weaker than expected. The unemployment rate dipped to 6.7% from 6.9% and has dropped from the record high of 14.7% in April. The trade deficit widened by a less than expected 1.7% to $63.1 B in October from $62.1B in September amid ongoing gains in exports and imports. Factory orders tracked estimates with a 1.0% rise in October.
Data from the Johns Hopkins Whiting School of Engineering shows there are now about 65.5M confirmed cases of COVID-19 worldwide, including 14.2M in the U.S., and 1.5M deaths due to the disease, including 277,000 in the U.S.
In stimulus news, CNBC reported that Democratic Congressional leaders, including Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, have ratcheted up pressure to reach a COVID-19 stimulus package deal after the new jobs data showed sluggish growth in the face of a second wave of infections.
TOP NEWS: Moderna (MRNA) was in focus after the company said last night that a letter to the editor was published in the New England Journal of Medicine, in which author Alicia T. Widge of Vaccine Research Center, NIAID, NIH and others said that the company's COVID-19 vaccine candidate, mRNA-1273, has the potential to provide "durable humoral immunity" to the virus. Along with the announcement, Moderna backed its expectation of having roughly 20M doses of the vaccine available in the U.S. by the end of 2020, adding it expects to have 100M-125M doses available globally in the first quarter of 2021, with 85M-100M of those available in the U.S. and 15M-25M of those available outside the U.S. These expected first quarter doses are inclusive within the 500M-1B doses that the company expects to manufacture globally in 2021. Reuters later reported that Moderna CEO Stephane Bancel said he was "very comfortable" with the goal of reaching 500M doses in 2021.
In other COVID-19 news, BioNTech (BNTX) told Bloomberg in an emailed statement that it is on track to produce 50M doses of its vaccine with partner Pfizer (PFE) this year. As of Friday, the companies had made the majority of the promised supply for this year, BioNTech said. For 2021, they are looking for ways to increase production capacity beyond a promised 1.3B doses.
Ulta Beauty (ULTA) shares closed 3.5% lower after the company reported third quarter results, with same-store sales for the quarter falling 8.9% year-over-year. Of note, the company continues to expect to open at least 30 new stores in fiscal 2021, though it also expects to incur $180M-$190M in PPE and COVID-19 related operating costs. Looking ahead, Ulta guided for a Q4 same-store sales decline of 12%-14%.
In other earnings news, shares of Marvell Technology (MRVL) fell 4.7% after the company reported Q3 results that were largely in line with consensus estimates. The company also provided in-line earnings and revenue guidance for Q4.
MAJOR MOVERS: Among the noteworthy gainers was Sutro Biopharma (STRO), which jumped over 33% after reporting "encouraging" Phase 1 data for STRO-002 in ovarian cancer. Also higher was PagerDuty (PD), which gained more than 26% after reporting quarterly results.
Among the notable losers was Precision BioSciences (DTIL), which declined almost 19% after announcing one NHL patient who was treated with PBCAR0191 and eLD died during a clinical trial. Stifel analyst Benjamin Burnett said he attributes the move lower in Precision BioSciences shares to what he views as worse than expected durability data for PBCAR0191. Also lower was Yext (YEXT), which fell 18.8% after reporting quarterly results.
INDEXES: The Dow rose 248.74, or 0.83%, to 30,218.26, the Nasdaq gained 87.05, or 0.70%, to 12,464.23, and the S&P 500 advanced 32.40, or 0.88%, to 3,699.12.
Moderna
-4.81 (-3.06%)
Pfizer
+0.26 (+0.65%)
BioNTech
+1.33 (+1.12%)
Ulta Beauty
-9.66 (-3.34%)
Marvell
-2.05 (-4.51%)
Sutro Biopharma
+5.61 (+32.98%)
PagerDuty
+8.53 (+26.36%)
Precision BioSciences
-1.94 (-18.95%)
Yext
-3.61 (-18.73%)