Gold drops dramatically, as BioNTech and Pfizer announce vaccine trial results

Gold suffered this deepest single-day decline in the last seven years. Not since June 2013 has gold suffered a decline of this magnitude. The decline is a direct result of announcements made by two pharmaceutical companies, Pfizer and BioNTech which wrapped up stage III trials. The results showed that this vaccine had a 90% efficacy rate. The stage III trial administered the vaccine to 43,000 individuals, and the data concluded that the vaccine is 90% effective in preventing the coronavirus.

Dr. Albert Bourla, Chairman and CEO of Pfizer said that “Today is a great day for science and humanity …The first set of results from our Phase 3 Covid-19 vaccine trial provides the initial evidence of our vaccine’s ability to prevent Covid-19.”

In a statement, he also said that the company is “reaching this critical milestone in our vaccine development program at a time when the world needs it most with infection rates setting new records, hospitals nearing over-capacity and economies struggling to reopen.”

The COVID-19 pandemic has reached epic proportions with 10,023,275 cumulative infections in the United States, and 237,760 lost lives in the U.S. alone where the pandemic has registered two consecutive days of 100,000 new cases. There have been over 50 million reported cases of the virus resulting in 1,260,768 deaths worldwide. With so many new daily cases occurring a vaccine cannot come quick enough.

Pfizer pharmaceutical said it will produce 50 million doses in 2020, and up to 1.3 billion vaccine doses in 2021. U.S. equities traded sharply higher on the news, with the Dow up over 1,000 points.

Silver sustained a 5.5% price decline with December futures currently fixed at $24.245.

Gold futures had been trading higher overseas as the markets opened first on Monday in Australia. It traded to an intraday high of $1966 before the announcement of a viable vaccine. As of 3:44 PM EST December futures are currently fixed at $1865.50 a decline of over $86 (- 4.42%). Dollar strength certainly provided headwinds, however, today’s gain in the dollar index was just over half percent, which means that selling pressure accounted for the remaining 4.01% in gold futures.

Wishing you as always, good trading and good health,