It’s Directional

Johnson & Johnson announced Wednesday that it will develop and deliver 100 million doses of its coronavirus vaccine for the U.S. in a deal totaling more than $1 billion.

The company’s experimental vaccine is currently in early-stage human trials and is expected to begin late-stage human trials in September, executives have previously said. The deal gives the U.S. the option to order an additional 200 million doses, according to the announcement.

This is really all that matters. Just about everything else is noise, because the virus being prevented will change it all. Therefore, if you just think and focus on this one thing, you’re saving yourself a lot of time.

There will now be a steady procession of vaccine related news each week into the actual FDA approval. My bet is that the first vaccine is approved this fall, before the election. I don’t know anything about vaccines but I know all I need to know about people and incentives.

Batches are already being produced for several of the leading vaccine candidates. Maybe more than one gets approved this year. You don’t need enough doses for everyone. You just need enough for people to feel like the problem has a solution.

The economy is going to roar if this happens. Roar. The stock market is sniffing this possibility out. So are the metals and other commodity prices.

If you’re hearing people saying boring, predictable things like “It’s going to be a long time before things get back to where they were blah blah blah” they’re absolutely clueless about how this stuff works. It’s not about the degree of recovery for the stock market, or some now-forgotten high watermark for a particular economic benchmark. Nobody gives a f*** about that. It’s DIRECTIONAL. That’s all that ever concerns the stock market. Which way are we going and at what speed? 

Well, on a vaccine approval, we’re getting our lives back and all the activity around you is going up. And the speed will be breakneck. We just need to get through the air pockets between now and then.

Source:

Johnson & Johnson reaches deal with U.S. for 100 million doses of coronavirus vaccine at more than $1 billion (CNBC)