ADGI - Moderna BioNTech among weekly healthcare gainers amid fears over new COVID-19 variant

A newly detected coronavirus variant in Africa created panic and sparked a market selloff in the holiday-shortened week. However, the developers of COVID-19 vaccines and therapeutics advanced while several common stock offerings pressured decliners. Despite the outperformance of biotech stocks, healthcare constituents in the S&P 500 slipped ~0.9%, contrasting the ~2.2% selloff in the broader index. Among stocks with more than $2B market capitalization and 100K average daily volume over the past five sessions, Moderna (NASDAQ:MRNA) dominated gainers to close ~31.1% higher thanks to a late-rally driven by renewed fears over a new COVID-19 variant. BioNTech (NASDAQ:BNTX), the partner of Pfizer (NYSE:PFE) in COVID-19 vaccine development, was not far behind, with a rise of ~27.0%. All developers are in a race to adjust their COVID-19 vaccines to address the new strain, which was named Omicron and classified as a "variant of concern" by the World Health Organization (WHO) on Friday. With early evidence suggesting

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Moderna, BioNTech among weekly healthcare gainers amid fears over new COVID-19 variant