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Wall St gains as Treasury yields ease and Moderna surges

The S&P 500 healthcare sector rose more than 3% to a record high as Moderna’s shares jumped over 137% on late-stage trial results for its mRNA cancer therapy.

Reported · Written up by our desk · North America

U.S. stock indexes rose modestly on Wednesday as easing government bond yields supported risk appetite, with investors also showing little immediate reaction to minutes from the Federal Reserve’s July meeting. Reuters reports the minutes pointed to deepening concern about inflation, with “several” policymakers open to raising interest rates if inflation does not move down toward the central bank’s 2% target.

The yield on the 30-year Treasury bond had reached its highest level since 2007 the prior day, but fell Wednesday after the U.S. Treasury said it would double the size of liquidity support buyback operations for longer-dated bonds. Reuters quoted BMO Private Wealth strategist Carol Schleif saying the market was trying to stay with the “risk-on trade” supported by the government’s action.

Moderna’s rally drove a sharp move in healthcare, with the company’s shares surging more than 137% after it said its personalized mRNA cancer therapy, developed with Merck, cut the risk of melanoma recurrence and spread in a late-stage trial. Reuters also noted Merck shares rose about 12%, and that the healthcare surge lifted the S&P 500 healthcare sector more than 3% to a record high, while the Nasdaq biotechnology index climbed more than 5%.

Broad market moves were smaller outside healthcare, with the Dow up 125.61 points to 53,469.01, the S&P 500 up 22.52 points to 7,714.28, and the Nasdaq Composite up 36.11 points to 26,325.82 as information technology stocks on the S&P 500 dipped 0.6%. Reuters also reported Marvell Technologies gained more than 7% after it said it will help develop custom chips for Google and offered the search company a right to buy a potenti (text truncated in source).

Latest closeS&P 500 7,785.76 ▼0.2%|Nasdaq Comp. 26,729.16 ▼0.3%|Dow Jones 53,732.41 ▼0.2%

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