AMC, Disney Shares Surge on Promising COVID-19 Vaccine News

Sean Burch
·2 min read

Shares of prominent entertainment companies like Disney and AMC are spiking higher on Monday morning, after Pfizer said a vaccine test was 90% effective at stopping COVID-19. At the same time, major “stay-at-home” companies like Netflix and Zoom Video are taking a hit, despite an overall uptick in the market.

The potential vaccine news pushed several companies that have benefitted greatly from people spending much more time on the couch lower. Netflix shares quickly dropped 7% during the first 30 minutes of trading on Monday, followed by a slight recovery; the streaming giant was down about 4% an hour into trading, with its stock hovering near $495 per share. Roku’s share price also dropped 8% to $232.43.

Zoom, the popular video chat company, was hit even harder, falling 16% an hour into trading. The drop comes after Zoom has enjoyed a big 2020, as millions of workers have had to adopt to working-from-home and holding video meetings. Even factoring in the Monday morning drop, Zoom’s stock has still increased from $68.72 to about $420 since the beginning of the year.

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AMC shares, on the other hand, surged 44% on the vaccine news, hitting $3.59 per share. Last month, AMC executives said the company — the largest theater chain in the U.S. — could run out of cash by early 2021, as theaters have struggled to remain open due to the pandemic and a dearth of new Hollywood releases. A vaccine, obviously, would reinvigorate its business.

Disney’s shares jumped nearly 10% to $139.93 an hour into trading. The company has struggled since March, as the pandemic has kept Disneyland shuttered and big-budget movies from releasing. Disney is now within striking distance of where its share price was at the beginning of the year, hovering around $148.

The Dow was up 3.9% and the S&P 500 was up 2.7% during early-trading, as a number of other industries, like airlines and resorts, were boosted on Pfizer’s vaccine news. (The tech-heavy Nasdaq was up 1%.) Dr. Anthony Fauci said Pfizer’s trial results, which spanned 44,000 people, were “just extraordinary,” per the AP.

Read original story AMC, Disney Shares Surge on Promising COVID-19 Vaccine News At TheWrap