UK Approves Pfizer’s Vaccine
Is this the beginning of the end? The UK announced yesterday that they have provisionally approved Pfizer’s Coronavirus vaccine. This makes the UK the first country to approve a vaccine, which they state will be available to individual members of the public by next week.
Vaccine rollout next year
Simon Steve, Chief Executive of the NHS, stated that the bulk of the vaccinations would occur between January and April next year. The Medicines and Healthcare Regulatory Agency (MHRA), the governing body for the UK which is responsible for ensuring medicines and vaccines are acceptably safe, stated that they volowed “an extremely thorough and scientifically rigorous review of all the evidence” and that “the public can be absolutely confident that the standards we have worked to, are equivalent to those around the world.”
The UK framework allows vaccines to be approved while reviewing the data given to them on a rolling basis, which is why it was approved earlier in the UK. This is compared to the United States, which requires a public review and full scrutinization of all the data available. The British Government has secured 357 Million allocations of seven separate vaccines.
Vaccine pushing markets higher
The S&P 500 and the NASDAQ were able to squeeze their way to new all-time highs. However, the real winner was oil – reaching $48.40c for a barrel of Brent Crude. It’s edging to break the strong psychological barrier of $50.
Oil needs the Vaccine
The Vaccine has provided a needed boost to the Black Gold. With OPEC+ coming close to a deal, we may see oil breach that $50 mark if OPEC decides to continue the supply cuts.
John Kilduff, a partner at Again Capital LLC, stated that “it looks like there is headway being made, which the [oil] market is looking for.” With the said, US Oil Inventories this week fell lower than what analysts were expecting, with a drop of 754,000, well shy of market estimates of 2.3 Million.
GBP/USD was surprisingly stable, maintaining that 1.337 level. However, EUR/USD blew past that 1.20 mark, currently sitting at 1.21.
Are you going to take the Vaccine when it’s available?
