A clinician prepares doses of a Moderna Covid-19 booster vaccine at a temporary vaccination center set up inside St John’s Church in west London on Dec. 4, 2021.
Daniel Leal/AFP via Getty Images
Moderna stock is rising Tuesday as it tries to end a five-day losing streak.
Moderna stock (ticker: MRNA) was down 3.1% Tuesday, reversing premarket losses, after falling 1.2% on Monday. Share are down 16% over the past five days.
A one-day bounce, however, can’t erase the recent pain in the stock. Its recent weakness has been a continuation of a drop that started more than four months ago and has seen Moderna stock tumble 49% from its Aug. 9 high through Monday’s close. Part of the problem is that Moderna stock seemed to get ahead of itself by gaining more than 300% to start the year. But it’s had other issues as well, including sales that have been unable to keep up with forecasts and what appears to be Pfizer
‘s (PFE) dominance of the Covid vaccine market. On Monday, investors learned that a shareholder had raised concerns about how much Moderna was charging poorer countries for its Covid vaccine.
Moderna isn’t the only Covid beneficiary in the biotech industry that’s been taking a hit. Novavax , too, has a five-day losing streak of its own, and, with the stock up 5.5% Tuesday after getting an emergency use approval from India for its Covid vaccine, it is also bouncing back. Still, shares investors appear to have dialed back the optimism following news that its Covid vaccine had gotten an EUA from the World Health Organization.
With Moderna, investors are wrestling with the same questions that they are with other Covid beneficiaries like Peloton (PTON) and Zoom Video Communications (ZM), stocks that have fallen hard after massive run-ups. The biggest ones: How much of the growth was real and how much was pulled forward from future years?
Until that’s answered, don’t get too comfortable.
Write to Ben Levisohn at [email protected]
