Wednesday's early trade: S&P, Nasdaq higher on vaccine hopes, improving data

NEW YORK: The S&P 500 and Nasdaq rose on Wednesday as rising hopes of a Covid-19 vaccine offset fears of another round of lockdowns following a record surge in coronavirus cases in the United States.

A Covid-19 vaccine developed by Pfizer Inc and German biotech firm BioNTech showed promise and was found to be well tolerated in early-stage human trial, the companies said.

Pfizer's shares rose 4.8% on the news, one of the biggest boost to the S&P 500 index, while BioNTech gained 3%, helping improve the mood on Wall Street after the United States registered 47,000 new coronavirus cases on Tuesday, the biggest one-day spike since the start of the pandemic.

The S&P 500 on Tuesday secured its biggest quarterly percentage gain in more than two decades fuelled by unprecedented levels of fiscal and monetary stimulus.

On Thursday, all eyes will be on the Labour Department's nonfarm payrolls report.

At 11:43 a.m. ET the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 19.88 points, or 0.08%, at 25,793.00, the S&P 500 was up 8.47 points, or 0.27%, at 3,108.76 and the Nasdaq Composite was up 56.63 points, or 0.56%, at 10,115.39.

FedEx Corp jumped 14.3% after posting better-than-expected quarterly profit and revenue, helped by a surge in pandemic-fuelled home deliveries.