S&P 500 · May 18, 2020
The morning the first vaccine data landed
+3.15%
single-day change vs previous close
Part of a longer stretch
The COVID rebound
midway through · 2020-03-23 → 2020-08-18, +51.51% over the whole period
What happened that day?
- 18 May 2020 — the S&P 500 rose 3.15%
- That morning a drugmaker said its vaccine had produced an immune response in its first trial in people
- One thing the market could not price then: when the lockdowns end. A vaccine was the only input that answered it
- So what rose was airlines, hotels and banks rather than tech — the businesses that need people moving again
- It was a very early stage with few participants. The size of the move says how heavy the worst case in the price had been
- From the February high to the 23 March low the index fell 33.92%. This day sits in the recovery after it
- That vaccine was authorised in December of the same year
Sources
Every figure on this page is recomputed from the original daily closing prices and checked against them at build time. The account of what happened is put together from the public record; where a specific source was consulted it is listed above.