Coronavirus Vaccine-Maker Stock Prices Just Shot Up
Vaxart (VXRT), an oral vaccine developer based in San Francisco, has been on an epic journey since the pandemic hit — and the proof is in its wild stock performance. As the Motley Fool recently reported, back in January you could buy a Vaxart share for just 34 cents. But on Monday, a single share of the company — whose COVID-19 vaccine was recently greenlit for clinical testing by the FDA — was worth $8.76.
Though it might be tempting to buy Vaxart shares in droves, prospective investors should note that Vaxart is both a micro-cap and a biotech stock with no drugs on the market as of yet. This makes it an inherently risky investment. Its nosedive to $1.08 on March 16 is a reminder that micro-cap companies are susceptible to the manipulation of market traders, regardless of what’s going on in the news. But good news certainly doesn’t hurt: On March 18, when Vaxart announced that it had signed a manufacturing agreement with Emergent Biosolutions to “advance an experimental COVID-19 vaccine” Vaxart’s stock soared by 162% in a mere 48 hours.
In June, the federal government hopped aboard as an investor in Vaxart, with the company receiving funding from Operation Warp Speed to participate in a non-human primate challenge study to prevent more people from catching COVID-19. Investors looking to get in on the coronovirus vaccine action might want to buy shares in Vaxart as well as in the other companies OWS is backing — including AstraZeneca, Inovio, Johnson & Johnson, Moderna, Novavax, Pfizer and Sanofi.
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This article originally appeared on GOBankingRates.com: Coronavirus Vaccine-Maker Stock Prices Just Shot Up
