The end of the corona crisis in Kim Hyun-suk’s Wall Street Now can be seen in Israel in late February.

On the morning of the 21st (local time), Yahoo Finance News put the title of the morning briefing as’stocks usually rise.’ It seemed to be showing the mood of the recent stock market waiting for the economic recovery from the vaccine supply.

In fact, the New York stock market went back and forth from consolidation due to the high valuation burden, but ended on an uptrend thanks to the rise in technology stocks such as Apple and Facebook. The Dowman declined slightly by 0.04%, the S&P 500 increased by 0.03% and the Nasdaq by 0.55%. All three indexes also hit record highs during the intraday.

Ahead of the announcement of the earnings of major technology stocks in the fourth quarter of last year next week, Wall Street is continuously raising the earnings forecasts of these major technology stocks. Starting with Microsoft on the 26th, Apple Facebook Tesla on the 27th, Amazon Alphabet on February 2nd, etc. will disclose the results.

On that day, Morgan Stanley raised the target price from US$144 to US$152, saying he expects the highest quarterly earnings ever for Apple. Analyst Katie Huberty said Apple was strong in both its product portfolio and services in the fourth quarter, and expects iPhone 12 sales and App Store sales to increase, especially with 5G (5G) features. As a result, Apple soared more than 6% during the week and closed up 3.67%.

In addition, Bank of America (BofA) has increased Amazon’s target price from $3650 to $4,000. Analyst Justin Post said, “Even though online shopping has increased significantly due to the pandemic over the past year, it still accounts for only 20% of the total retail sales market, so there is plenty of room to grow.” In addition, the cloud service, which is Amazon’s core business, is evaluated as having almost limitless potential for development as the market is still in its infancy. Amazon rose 1.34%.

Already this year, the NASDAQ has risen more than 5%. FAANG stocks rose more than 6%. The S&P 500 has also surpassed some financial firms’ year-end targets. Although observations continue to be made that the index will be adjusted due to a valuation burden, the market is rising almost every day.

This is a meaningful day. This is because the first case of a coronavirus patient in the United States is the day exactly the first year since it was reported to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). From January 21st last year to this day, 24.4 million people were infected with corona in the United States alone, of which more than 400,000 people died.

President Joe Biden signed 10 executive orders to eradicate the coronavirus today. It follows the order to recommend wearing a mask the day before. Accordingly, it was mandatory to wear a mask when traveling to other states, and when entering the United States by plane from other countries, inspection before boarding the plane and quarantine after arrival were mandatory. Anthony Pouch, director of the National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases, who signed President Biden’s signature next to him, said he had received a second vaccine on the 19th. “It’s a little creepy and tired,” he said, “but it’s not sick.”

Fortunately, the rate of corona spread is slowing in the United States. The number of infections per day exceeded 300,000 on January 8, but from the 17th, it has fallen to the late 100,000 level. The number of infected people on the 20th is 184,000, and the moving average on the 7th is 194,000. The number of hospitalized patients, the number of deaths, and the rate of infected people in the test are all coming down after peaking.

Ethan Harris, chief economist of BofA, said in a customer memo that day, “the vaccine spread is accelerating and the corona spread is decreasing. This may be the beginning of the’end of the corona crisis’.” He just pointed out that you need to be careful about new strains of virus.

The same goes for Goldman Sachs. Goldman Sachs estimates that vaccination so far has reduced hospitalization rates in the United States by 2%. And the hospitalization rate has peaked, and the hospitalization rate is expected to be cut in half by April compared to the assumption that there was no vaccine. It is also observed that it will drop to almost’zero’ this summer.

Behind this optimism lies President Biden’s plan to accelerate vaccination. Biden plans to achieve 1 million vaccinations every day for 100 days after taking office, and more than 100 million vaccinations by the end of April. In fact, the number of inoculations has increased to over 900,000 per day. The average number of vaccinations on 7 days was 200,000 per day until last year, but it rose to 800,000 on the 19th.

The United States initially tried to complete 20 million vaccinations by the end of last year, but mistakes in the initial supply and vaccination process, budget and manpower shortages overlap until the end of the year, and the actual number of vaccinations is still only 16 million.

Wall Street is currently watching Israel with the US vaccination rate. Israel, with a cumulative number of 550,000 confirmed cases and more than 4,000 deaths, is the fastest country in the world with vaccines.

In Israel, of the 9.3 million people in the country, more than a quarter of 2.365,000 have completed the first dose of the Pfizer vaccine by yesterday. The number of people who completed the second vaccination reached 692,000. Israel is expected to reach the level of collective immunity by the end of February, with more than 60% of the population completing the second dose. In addition, by the end of March, all national vaccinations are planned. Prime Minister Ben Jamin Netanyahu, who is about to be elected in March, is expected to announce a resumption of the economy with mass immunity in late February.

Wall Street is closely watching whether Israel’s plan will work properly, how effective the vaccination will be, and how much the economy will normalize if more than 60% of collective immunity is achieved. A Wall Street official said, “The key is whether the infection rate will really drop sharply due to the vaccine effect at the end of March and the economy will revive.” “But if something unexpected happens, such as a lack of vaccine effectiveness, there could be a lot of adjustments, as uncertainties grow about how much delay the economy will normalize,” he added.

The day before, Israeli health agency Claret said that if you get a single dose of Pfizer’s vaccine, the prevention rate is lower than that of Pfizer’s announcement. That’s just 33%. The Israeli Ministry of Health also said the infection rate fell to 50% 14 days after the first vaccination. This is lower than the 52% infection prevention effect when the first vaccination announced by Pfizer. The prevention rate has not yet come out after the second vaccination. 95% of Pfizer’s phase 3 clinical trials came out.

Israel’s Infectious Reproduction Index (R) fell to 0.99 that day, according to Reuters. It was 1.3 on December 11, last year, before the vaccination started. If the R number has dropped below 1, it means that infection has entered a definite decline. Israeli Ministry of Health Minister Joav Kish said the blockade that began on December 27 last year and the effect of being vaccinated by more than a quarter of the people have lowered the R number. “The vaccine is reducing the incidence rate considerably,” he said.

Reporter Kim Hyun-seok [email protected]