Retailers could end up having a strong finish to 2020, despite all of the challenges that the coronavirus pandemic has dealt the industry, according to a new forecast. The National Retail Federation said Monday it expects holiday sales during November and December to rise between 3.6% and 5.2% year over year, amounting to between $755.3
British pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca said Monday an interim analysis of clinical trials showed its coronavirus vaccine has an average efficacy of 70% in protecting against the virus. It comes after a string of encouraging vaccine results in recent weeks, following late-stage trial readouts from Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna. Pfizer and Moderna reported preliminary results showing that their respective Covid vaccines were around
Sales of existing homes in October soared well past expectations, rising 4.3% compared with September and 26.6% annually to a seasonally adjusted annualized rate of 6.85 million units, according to the National Association of Realtors. The NAR’s chief economist, Lawrence Yun, called the annual increase “a spectacular gain.” The annualized sales rate is the highest
The nation’s homebuilders have never been this happy. In November, builder confidence in the construction market for single-family homes soared to its third record high in as many months. Overall builder sentiment hit 90 on the monthly National Association of Home Builders’ Wells Fargo Housing Market Index. Anything above 50 is considered positive. Last November,
By Max Nisen (Bloomberg Opinion) -- The world now seems likely to have at least two effective vaccines against Covid-19 with Monday's announcement of positive early data from Moderna Inc.’s 30,000-person clinical trial. The result comes a week after Pfizer Inc. and BioNTech SE revealed a protection rate of more than 90% protection against disease. Moderna slightly one-upped
(Reuters) - Moderna Inc’s experimental vaccine is 94.5% effective in preventing COVID-19 based on interim data from a late-stage trial, the company said on Monday, becoming the second U.S. drugmaker to report results that far exceed expectations. Together with Pfizer Inc’s vaccine, which is also more than 90% effective, and pending more safety data and
The approval of a Covid-19 vaccine by the end of the year should lead to much of the United States being vaccinated during the first half of 2021, according to Goldman Sachs. On Thursday, the firm’s economic research team laid out a timeline for mass immunization with a successful vaccine, which included many high-risk individuals
By Rosalie ChanNovember 12, 2020 Cloud-based enterprise software companies seem recession-proof, according to a new report from OpenView Venture Partners with data from over 1,200 enterprise cloud software firms between 2018 and 2020, with 400 respondents this year. These companies responded quickly to the coronavirus pandemic and their software became a necessity for many customers,
By Ben WinckNovember 12, 2020 The US economy won't return to the exact same state it was in before the pandemic, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said Thursday. The health crisis is accelerating digitization throughout the economy, and Americans already slammed by the virus's fallout are at the highest risk of losing their jobs, he
Goldman Sachs is out Wednesday morning with a big call for clients. The firm has turned more bullish about the stock market on the back of the promising vaccine news and a divided U.S. government. Goldman hiked its year-end S&P 500 target to 3,700 from 3,600, a 4% rise from Tuesday’s close of 3,545.53. Goldman also expects the