Here are five things you need to know by Tuesday, December 29th:
1. – Stock Futures points to more Wall Street records
Futures of the stock market traded higher throughout Tuesday and were heading for more records as Wall Street gained optimism with President Donald Trump’s signing of the coronavirus relief package.
Contracts related to the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 113 points, futures S&P 500 rose 14 points and Nasdaq futures rose 45 points.
Stocks closed at record highs Monday after Trump signed a $ 2.3 trillion spending bill Sunday afternoon that includes nearly $ 1 trillion in coronavirus relief. The Dow rose 204 points, 0.68%, to 30,403, the S&P 500 rose 0.87% to 3,735, and the Nasdaq gained 0.74% to 12,899.
Last Monday, the House of Representatives passed a bill that would increase stimulus controls for Americans to $ 2,000 of the $ 600 of legislation Trump signed into law. The President has supported the proposal.
The bill is now going to the Senate. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has not said whether the upper house would hold a vote on the pay rise.
2. – The Japanese Nikkei 225 has reached a maximum of 30 years
Asian stocks ended higher on Tuesday and the Japanese Nikkei 225 index hit a 30-year high after US President Trump signed the economic aid package.
Tokyo’s Nikkei 225 jumped 2.7% to 27,568.15, the first time it has traded above 27,000 since August 1990, according to FactSet.
For more information on Asian markets, read:
The US reinforces the ban on Chinese companies linked to the military
3. – Boeing’s 737 MAX will fly again on Tuesday
The Boeing (BA) – Get the report The 737 MAX, landed since March 2019 after two fatal crashes, will fly again on Tuesday with paying passengers.
American Airlines’ (AAL) – Get the report Flight 718 is expected to leave Miami around 10:30 am ET and arrive in New York LaGuardia at 1:30 pm, USA Today reported.
The Federal Aviation Administration approved the return of service to the 737 MAX last month. FAA Administrator Steven Dickson said at the time that he was “100% confident” in the safety of the plane after terminating the 20-month order that would allow the plane to resume commercial flights.
The two crashes of the 737 MAX, in Ethiopia and Indonesia, which killed 346 people, were eventually related to the jet navigation system.
United Airlines (UAL) – Get the report he said he hopes to resume MAX flights on Feb. 11.
Boeing shares rose 0.81% to $ 217.83 in pre-market trading.
4. – Coronavirus: the last
The number of confirmed global deaths from Covid-19, the disease caused by coronavirus, is 1,775,661, according to Johns Hopkins University. Confirmed cases of the virus worldwide have risen to more than 81.3 million.
The death toll in the US is 334,963, the highest in the world. The number of infected people confirmed in the US was 19,308,467.
According to university data, there were 150,092 new coronavirus cases in the U.S. and 1,209 deaths on Monday.
Hospitalizations related to Covid-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, reached remarkable highs on Monday.
Southern California health officials are likely to expand home stay orders on Tuesday as the capacity of the intensive care unit has dropped to 0%, Gov. Gavin Newsom said.
The governor said so far more than 261,672 doses of vaccine have been administered in California, Bloomberg reported. He said that by the end of the week the state should have received the 904,000 Modern (MRNA) – Get the report vaccine dose and 858,000 Pfizer (PFE) – Get the report dose that the state hoped to have at this time.
5. – Novavax begins phase 3 testing of the Covid-19 vaccine
(NVAX) – Get the report (NVAX) – Get the report has started a phase 3 clinical trial of its experimental Covid-19 vaccine in up to 30,000 people at 115 locations in the US and Mexico.
The Novavax shot will become the fifth vaccine to enter final stage testing in the US. Moderna and Pfizer vaccines received emergency use authorization from the Food and Drug Administration in early December and Johnson & Johnson vaccines (JNJ) – Get the report and AstraZeneca (AZN) – Get the report they are in large-scale testing.
If the results of the Novavax trial are positive, the vaccine could receive approval sometime in 2021.
“We’ve gotten this far, so fast, but we have to get to the finish line,” Francis S. Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health, which helps fund the Novavax study, told The Wall Street Journal. “This will require multiple vaccines that use different methods to ensure everyone is protected safely and effectively against this deadly disease.”
In addition to NIH support, the Novavax trial will receive $ 1.6 billion from the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, which is part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
Shares of Novavax, based in Gaithersburg, Maryland, fell 0.73% to $ 116 in premarket trading on Tuesday. Shares fell 9.66% on Monday.