16 November 2020: Moderna reports a 94.5 percent effective vaccine
A week after Pfizer's breakthrough, Moderna announced its Covid-19 vaccine was 94.5 percent effective in trials. Moderna had never brought a product to market before, and its stock had already soared during the year on hopes for its mRNA technology. The news confirmed the approach worked. The company went from a speculative biotech to a household name with billions in revenue almost overnight.
The lesson: Years of unprofitable research can pay off spectacularly, but rarely on a schedule.
What it meant for investors
$1,000 in Moderna at the start of 2020 → $1,579 today, vs $2,092 in the S&P 500.
We start the clock at the start of 2020, the year it happened. That is 1.6 times the money, but $513 less than a plain index fund made over the same years.
What Moderna teaches: Start and end prices can hide enormous swings in between, and a windfall is only truly earned if you have a rule for when to take it.
| Bought in | Price then | Worth today | S&P 500 would be |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2020 | $19.00 | $1,579 | $2,092 |
green = beat the S&P 500 · red = lost money
What if you bought Moderna? Every starting year and the full story →
Could you have called it at the time? The wheel picks the year, you pick the position, ten seconds a pick.
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