What the Moderna share price reveals about vaccines

 Pre-pandemic, Moderna was a $9 billion company. But by the time Covid had spread around the world the biotech company’s value grew to $35 billion. Then came the advent of the vaccines, of which Moderna was one of the leading manufacturers, and the company’s net worth soared to an eye-popping $195 billion in September of 2021.

Given the large numbers of countries recommending boosters, one might expect the Moderna share price to keep rising. But, strangely, the opposite has happened. Since the end of November 2021, the company’s share price has actually been declining dramatically, falling from $368 to $147 at the time of writing.

Why might this be? And what does it tell us about the vaccines more generally?

I sat down with Louis Gave, a financial analyst and co-founder of Gavekal, a financial services firm based in Hong Kong. Gave noted that the markets had been ahead of politicians and even epidemiologists on the Omicron variant in terms of its lethality, but also evidently they had determined that vaccines were not the ‘silver bullet’ solution they were initially sold as. What may be taboo to say in political circles is more bluntly put when people are betting their money on the outcome.

Thanks to Louis for an enlightening conversation.