Here are five things you should know for Tuesday, December 29:
1. – Future actions point to more Wall Street records
Stock futures traded higher on Tuesday and were heading for more records as Wall Street gained optimism with President Donald Trump’s signature coronavirus relief package.
Contracts linked to the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 113 points, S&P 500 futures rose 14 points and Nasdaq futures rose 45 points.
The stock closed at record levels on Monday after Trump signed a $ 2.3 trillion spending account on Sunday that includes nearly $ 1 trillion in coronavirus relief. The Dow finished up 204 points, or 0.68%, to 30,403, the S&P 500 rose 0.87% to 3,735 and the Nasdaq gained 0.74% to 12,899.
On Monday, the House of Representatives passed a bill that would increase stimulus checks for Americans to $ 2,000, out of the $ 600 of legislation Trump has signed. The president supported the proposal.
The bill now goes to the Senate. Mitch McConnell, the Senate majority leader, did not say whether the upper house would vote to increase payments.
2. – Japan’s Nikkei 225 hits 30-year high
Asian stocks closed higher on Tuesday and Japan’s Nikkei 225 index hit its biggest high in 30 years after U.S. President Trump signed the economic aid package.
The Nikkei 225 in Tokyo 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:
US strengthens ban on Chinese military-related companies
3. – Boeing’s 737 MAX will fly again on Tuesday
Boeing (BA) – Get report The 737 MAX, suspended since March 2019 after two fatal accidents, will fly again with paying passengers on Tuesday.
American Airlines’ (AAL) – Get report Flight 718 is due to leave Miami at about 10:30 am ET and arrive in New York LaGuardia at 1:30 pm, USA Today reported.
The Federal Aviation Administration approved a return to service for the 737 MAX last month. FAA administrator Steven Dickson said at the time that he was “100% confident” in the safety of the aircraft after rescinding the 20-month order that would allow the plane to resume commercial flights.
The two accidents with the 737 MAX, in Ethiopia and Indonesia, which killed 346 people, were related to the jet’s navigation system.
United airlines (UAL) – Get report said it hopes to resume MAX flights on February 11.
Boeing shares rose 0.81% to $ 217.83 in Tuesday’s pre-market.
4. – Coronavirus – The most recent
The number of global deaths confirmed by Covid-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, 1,775,661, according to Johns Hopkins University. Confirmed cases of the virus worldwide have increased to more than 81.3 million.
The death toll in the US is 334,963, the highest in the world. The number of confirmed infected people in the USA was 19,308,467.
There were 150,092 new cases of coronavirus in the United States on Monday and 1,209 deaths, according to university data.
Hospitalizations related to Covid-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, reached high news on Monday.
Health officials in Southern California are likely to extend home stay requests as the intensive care unit’s capacity has dropped to 0%, said Governor Gavin Newsom.
The governor said more than 261,672 doses of vaccine have been administered in California so far, Bloomberg reported. He said that by the end of the week the state should have received all 904,000 Modern (MRNA) – Get report vaccine doses and 858,000 Pfizer (PFE) – Get report doses the state hoped to have at this point.
5. – Novavax starts Covid-19 phase 3 test
(NVAX) – Get report (NVAX) – Get report initiated a Phase 3 clinical trial of its Covid-19 experimental vaccine in up to 30,000 people at 115 sites in the US and Mexico.
The Novavax injection will become the fifth vaccine to enter the final testing stage in the United States. Moderna and Pfizer vaccines received authorization for emergency use from the Food and Drug Administration in early December, and vaccines from Johnson & Johnson (JNJ) – Get report and AstraZeneca (AZN) – Get report are undergoing large-scale testing.
If the results of the Novavax trial are positive, the vaccine could be approved sometime in 2021.
“We came here so quickly, but we need to get to the finish line,” said Francis S. Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health, which is helping to fund the Novavax study, to The Wall Street Journal. “This will require multiple vaccines using different approaches to ensure that everyone is safely and effectively protected from this deadly disease.”
In addition to NIH support, the Novavax study will receive $ 1.6 billion from the Advanced Biomedical Research and Development Authority, which is part of the United States Department of Health and Human Services.
Shares of Novavax, based in Gaithersburg, Maryland, fell 0.73% to $ 116 in pre-market trading on Tuesday. The shares plunged 9.66% on Monday.