S&P futures pause after strong rally on vaccine cheer

By Medha Singh

(Reuters) – Futures tied to the S&P 500 dipped in choppy trading on Tuesday as worries about the extent of the COVID-19 pandemic’s economic impact resurfaced, a day after Wall Street rallied sharply on successful vaccine data.

The main U.S. indexes clinched new peaks on Monday as the first successful data from a late-stage COVID-19 vaccine trial spurred bets of a swift economic recovery. Democrat Joe Biden’s projected victory in the U.S. presidential election also added to the market cheer.

Biden hailed Pfizer’s progress on the vaccine, but urged caution saying it would be “many more months” before widespread vaccination is available. Meanwhile, daily new U.S. cases topped 100,000 for the sixth straight day.

Pfizer’s shares climbed another 4% in early trading on top of their 8% jump in the prior session.

Technology-focused stocks, which benefited from work-from-home policies, lost further ground on Tuesday, pressuring the Nasdaq 100 futures by about 1.6%.

Netflix Inc , Amazon.com Inc , Facebook Inc , Apple Inc fell between 1.8% and 2.3% as investors rotated into sectors that are expected to benefit from a full reopening of the economy.

Shares of big U.S. banks, which are sensitive to the broader economic outlook, were up about 1% and 2%.

Cruise line operators and carriers battered by travel restrictions including Carnival Corp , Royal Caribbean , Delta Air Lines and United Airlines built on Monday’s rally, advancing between 1.5% and 4%.

At 06:38 a.m. EST, Dow E-minis <1YMcv1> were up 0.8% and S&P 500 E-minis were down 0.08%.

(Reporting by Medha Singh in Bengaluru; Editing by Saumyadeb Chakrabarty)