By Caroline Valetkevitch
NEW YORK (Reuters) -Global equity indexes rose on Tuesday after encouraging COVID-19 vaccine news, while Brexit deal talks weighed on sterling.
Both the S&P 500 and Nasdaq reversed earlier declines to trade higher and hit record intraday highs by early New York afternoon.
Johnson & Johnson shares rose after the company said it could obtain late-stage trial results of a single-dose COVID-19 vaccine it is developing, earlier than expected.
Pfizer Inc also gained as it cleared the next hurdle in the race to get its COVID-19 vaccine approved for emergency use, after the U.S. health regulator released documents raising no new safety or efficacy issues.
There is much near-term negative news because of the virus but at the same time, a lot of positive news because of the vaccine, said Rick Meckler, a partner at Cherry Lane Investments in New Jersey.
Stocks were mostly lower earlier in the session, with COVID-19 infections nationwide in the United States at their peak, with an average of 193,863 new cases reported each day over the past week, a Reuters tally of official data showed.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 103.92 points, or 0.35%, to 30,173.71, the S&P 500 gained 9.28 points, or 0.25%, to 3,701.24 and the Nasdaq Composite added 52.65 points, or 0.42%, to 12,572.59.
The pan-European STOXX 600 index ended up 0.2% on the day, while MSCI’s gauge of stocks across the globe gained 0.16%.
Investors were trying to assess how widely and quickly vaccines might be available.
A 90-year-old grandmother became the world’s first person to receive a fully-tested COVID-19 shot as Britain began mass-vaccinating its people in a global drive.
With just three weeks left to break a deadlock in trade deal negotiations, talk of a chaotic British split from the European Union grew on Tuesday. British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said the two sides may have to accept “no deal”.
In the foreign exchange market, sterling was last trading at $1.3364, down 0.09% on the day, while the dollar index was up 0.1%.
Investors are also awaiting a two-day EU summit that begins Thursday, and the bloc is ready to set up its planned EU stimulus without Hungary and Poland, which are maintaining their veto of the EU budget.
Most U.S. Treasury yields were lower as investors watched for news on vaccines and their distribution.
Benchmark 10-year notes last rose 6/32 in price to yield 0.91%, from 0.93% late on Monday.
Oil prices were near unchanged, while spot gold prices were higher.
(Reporting by Caroline Valetkevitch; additional reporting by Shriya Ramakrishnan and Sruthi Shankar in Bengaluru, Marc Jones in London and Ross Kerber in Boston; editing by Philippa Fletcher, Larry King, Mark Heinrich and Barbara Lewis)
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