(Bloomberg) -- Travel and leisure stocks, hurt for months by fears of the delta variant, staged a comeback on Friday after Pfizer Inc. announced its pill reduced Covid-19 hospitalizations and deaths substantially.
Investors bet that the drug, the second promising candidate for treating Covid-19 patients, will help tame the pandemic and speed up the comeback of travel. Airline stocks jumped 7% in their best day since November 2020. Shares of cruise lines advanced as well, while some of the biggest tech companies, many of which have benefited from consumers spending more time at home, fell.
“This could be the beginning of the second leg of the reopening trade, where international and business travel accelerates,” said Andrew Ross, a managing member of Confluence Global Capital.
Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings Ltd. rose 7.8%, Carnival Corp. climbed 8.3%, while Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd. added 9%. While shares of Pfizer soared 10.9%, vaccine competitor Moderna Inc. slumped 16.6%. Among tech companies, Netflix Inc. shares fell 3.4%, and Microsoft edged 0.1% lower.
Last month, Merck & Co. and partner Ridgeback Biotherapeutics LP submitted their experimental pill to regulators after a study showed it slashed the risk of getting seriously ill or dying by half in patients with mild-to-moderate Covid-19.
Airlines have recently signaled that customers may be growing more willing to travel. Delta Air Lines said on Thursday its international bookings surged 450% in the six weeks since the U.S. announced it’s reopening to fully vaccinated travelers from abroad. The news has helped propel a 13% rally in the stock this week, the biggest since November 2020.
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