Hopes are soaring that a Covid vaccine is within reach, following news that an interim analysis has shown Pfizer/BioNTech’s candidate was 90% effective in protecting people from transmission of the virus in global trials.
The vaccine performed much better than most experts had hoped for, according to the companies’ analysis, and brings into view a potential end to a pandemic that has killed more than a million people, battered economies and upended daily life worldwide.
The data is from an interim analysis and the trial continues into December but the headline results were emphatic. Regulators will be looking to process an emergency licence application at record speed.
Manufacturing is already under way. Pfizer said they expect to supply globally up to 50m vaccine doses in 2020 and up to 1.3bn doses in 2021. Countries will decide who they prioritise for vaccination.
The news comes too late to help Donald Trump’s re-election campaign in the US, but the vice-president, Mike Pence, tried to claim their administration’s Operation Warp Speed programme had helped the vaccine’s development.
Pfizer denied the suggestion:
“We were never part of the Warp Speed,” Kathrin Jansen, a senior vice-president and the head of vaccine research and development at Pfizer, said in an interview. “We have never taken any money from the US government, or from anyone.”
BioNTech, the small biotechnology company that is the originator of the vaccine, was founded by two married German scientists, Uğur Şahin and Özlem Türeci, both born to Turkish immigrant parents, and the Austrian oncologist Christopher Huber. It originally set out to develop new types of immunotherapy for cancer, but has concentrated its capacities on the race for a Covid-19 vaccine.
There are so far no safety concerns around the vaccine, with the two companies reporting no serious side-effects. The high percentage of those protected makes it especially compelling. Regulators have previously said they would approve a vaccine that has just a 50% effectiveness rate – protecting half of those who get vaccinated.
“We are reaching this critical milestone in our vaccine development programme at a time when the world needs it most with infection rates setting new records, hospitals nearing over-capacity and economies struggling to reopen.”

A second topic that came up is yields. There is the SEC Yield and trailing twelve month yields. Some funds pay annual dividends and others pay one time dividends. Why should you care? Take GAVIX. The forward yield is 7.1%, the four year average yield is 6% ...

Not a particular judgement on the funds, but simply matter of not wanting to pay taxes because of all my put income this year. Some of them have indeed stunk up the place, though. In a market they are supposed to excel, they have been found wanting.
Would like to hear from others which funds they gave up on because I don't want to land in those funds without having the full picture.
At this point completely out of these funds
BPRRX, BGRSX (to cut a long story short ...no pun intended)
APPLX (selling each of last 3 years...what the effing F)
GRSPX (meh...)
MDISX, MQIFX (last of the funds I fell in love with the idea of owning, gotten over that the day I sold HSGFX)
All Artisan funds I owned with "value" in the name but looking to buy back (still one I own, see below)
RPHYX, RSIVX, WMCNX (Sorry people, I can do better selling puts)
PRIJX (hoodwinked into the emerging markets value will do well idea, was in my MILs account)
PVFIX (found alternative, see below)
Funds I sold partially and still hold
FMIMX
ARTKX (if I sell it will generate capital gains)
COBYX (my condolence to the manager's family who passed, but really when are you going to turn around?)
Funds looking to sell at least some off to capture tax loss, hard decisions
IVWAX (my bad luck has to be excellent, manager has to leave, and with all that cash still stinks)
VGPMX (not "golden" any more)
VSIAX (bad timing)
WHGIX, FEVAX (not too worried, but since I don't reinvest dividends, have a loss on cost basis)
Moves that paid off
TMSRX (For MILs account)
PVCMX (Mr Cinnamond, you are not allowed to closed and then re-open new fund any more, it's illegal)
VLAAX, VALIX (lucky timing)
ONERX (Jeff Wrona found God. M* says NEGATIVE. F Them. Rock On)

The auto industry is roaring back far sooner than expected, in the latest sign of the economy's two-track recovery. Major auto manufacturers have been raking in money this past quarter, as consumers who can afford it show unexpectedly strong appetite for expensive new vehicles.
Companies like Ford, General Motors, Fiat Chrysler, Daimler and BMW reported impressive earnings in the period between July to September, surpassing their pre-pandemic performance in many key metrics. Honda and Toyota raised their profit forecasts sharply. It's a remarkable turnaround for an industry that, just a few months ago, was facing a grim outlook. Plants around the world were shut down this spring to stop the spread of the coronavirus.
Carmakers couldn't sell vehicles, because they weren't making any. They were bleeding billions of dollars, and bracing for a recession that would send demand for their products plummeting even after they restarted assembly lines. But then production resumed. And it turns out Americans — those who can still afford new cars, anyway — want new vehicles as badly as ever. Pent-up demand from people who put off purchases earlier in the pandemic was boosted even further by federal stimulus checks and low interest rates.
"Consumers have proved resilient," says Stephanie Brinley, an analyst with IHS Markit. "They came back to the showrooms as soon as they could."
It might seem counter-intuitive. Millions of Americans are struggling financially. The U.S. has recovered just over half of the 22 million jobs lost early in the pandemic. But those job losses disproportionately hit lower-income workers, particularly in service industries, and new cars are marketed to higher-earning buyers. The stock market has been soaring, and many well-compensated workers have been able to work from home.
Instead of experiencing a financial crunch, they might even be saving money by reducing expenditures on things like travel and dining out.
The spending power of the financially comfortable is powering sales trends in high-end homes as well as new cars.
Indeed, those buyers showed a strong preference for pricey pick-up trucks and SUVs loaded with premium features, pushing new car transaction prices higher. That's a long-standing trend in American car buying, but it may have been intensified by the pandemic, as financially secure shoppers are less focused on commuter vehicles and thinking more about road trips or leisure.
The preference for high-cost vehicles means automakers can turn tidy profits even on a smaller number of total sales. Meanwhile, some companies are also seeing a boost from rising used car prices, which provided a cash infusion to their financing arms. Demand in China has also rebounded significantly.
The result? Ford paid back $15 billion it had borrowed to make it through the pandemic and still had $30 billion in cash left over. General Motors doubled analyst expectations for earnings-per-share in the third quarter. And Fiat Chrysler reported its highest ever quarterly earnings in North America.
Brinley notes that sales will still be down for the year as a whole, and given the uncertainty about the ongoing pandemic, "there is still opportunity to have difficulty in the next year."
But the unexpectedly strong performance from automakers in the third quarter helps make up for the losses they suffered earlier in the year. And it's a relief for automakers as they look toward the future, where they have committed to make hefty investments.
Every major car company is banking on a future in battery-powered vehicles, which requires an expensive transformation in their industry. And that's before you tally up the costs of investing in autonomous vehicles.
GM CEO Mary Barra emphasized this week that the tremendous amount of cash that GM was earning from full-size trucks and SUVs in North America will allow the company to self-fund its electric vehicle investments, rather than needing to borrow money or seek investors. "We're going to go hard at [electric vehicles]," she said. "The North America performance ... allows us to do that."
Meanwhile, Tesla, which led the industry in electrification and is popular with luxury car customers, was profitable all year long.