Moderna's best day ever 💉

Welcome back to the Day Trading newsletter 📈

Stocks snapped a three-day losing streak Wednesday (the S&P 500 rose 0.2% to 7,707.98) as bond yields finally eased and one biotech turned in the largest single-day gain by an S&P 500 stock this century.

Let’s get into it 👇️ 

🔻 Walmart slid roughly 9% in Thursday premarket trading despite beating estimates. Adjusted EPS of $0.81 topped the $0.74 consensus on revenue of $187.9 billion, but U.S. comparable sales grew just 2.6% — the slowest pace since 2020 — and next quarter's revenue guidance came in light.

💰️ The Treasury doubled its long-dated debt buybacks, and the bond market exhaled. Operations run from September 9 to November 4 at $4 billion or more each, double the prior $2 billion. The 30-year yield — at a 19-year high Monday — fell 9 basis points to 5.196%, and stocks rallied on the news.

🤝 The Fed's July meeting minutes showed officials open to rate hikes if inflation doesn't ease. Three of the twelve voters dissented in favor of an immediate hike at the meeting that held rates at 3.50%–3.75%, and officials acknowledged inflation remained elevated. Rate-cut bets keep fading.

🎯 Target posted a blowout quarter and raised its full-year outlook. Comparable sales rose 3.8% against a 2.4% consensus, driven by 3.6% traffic growth, and full-year EPS guidance jumped to $9.90–$10.90 from $7.50–$8.50 — though $994 million in pretax tariff refunds did some heavy lifting. Shares rose about 5% Wednesday to a 52-week high.

💉 Trump tapped White House aide Dr. Heidi Overton to run the FDA. Analysts called the pick troublesome for vaccine makers — Raymond James' Chris Meekins said Overton has "bought further into anti-science and anti-vaccine messaging" — while seeing upside for psychedelics and new pain-med developers.

🔨 Home Depot beat on the top and bottom line but kept its guidance unchanged. Sales rose 5.7% to $47.9 billion with adjusted EPS of $4.92 versus the $4.73 estimate, as customers stuck to smaller projects. The CFO described the housing market as "frozen" — shoppers have money but won't commit to big renovations.

📉 Fabrinet sank 20% Tuesday despite beating on every line, dragging down optical peers — Marvell fell 8% and Amphenol 7%. Revenue of $1.32 billion and EPS of $4.10 both topped estimates, but gross margin slipped to 12.2%, free cash flow went negative, and guidance implied slowing growth — a problem for a stock that ran up 25% into the print.

🔽 Viking Holdings fell 4% after warning that historically low European river levels disrupted more than half its river-cruise days from mid-July through mid-August. The cruise line beat Q2 estimates with net income up 33.9% to $588 million, but compensation vouchers for rerouted guests will bite into 2027 and 2028 results.

Moderna and Merck announced Wednesday that their personalized mRNA cancer vaccine succeeded in a Phase 3 trial.

It’s the first mRNA-based cancer therapy ever to clear that bar.

In the 1,137-patient INTerpath-001 study, patients who had high-risk melanoma surgically removed and then received the vaccine (intismeran autogene) alongside Merck's Keytruda went longer without their cancer returning than those on Keytruda alone, and were less likely to see it spread to other parts of the body.

Moderna's stock closed up 177% at $174.38 (the biggest one-day gain by any S&P 500 stock this century) adding about $44 billion of market value and taking its market cap from roughly $25 billion to nearly $70 billion.

Merck rose 12.6%, BioNTech jumped 22%, and the S&P 500 healthcare sector climbed 3.5% for its best day since April 2025.

This is a different kind of vaccine. Each dose is custom-built from a genetic readout of the patient's own tumor, teaching the immune system to hunt that specific cancer.

Wednesday's win validates the entire approach, and the readout landed months early: the trial hit significance at a prespecified interim analysis, when RBC analysts weren't expecting data until year-end. It's also a business lifeline.

Moderna's COVID revenue has collapsed, and Merck faces the loss of exclusivity on Keytruda (a drug that generated $31.7 billion last year) so analysts tip the vaccine for multi-billion-dollar peak sales if it delivers in more cancers.

What to watch: 

• The hard numbers. The companies said the improvements were "clinically meaningful" but held the actual data back for a future medical meeting — earlier Phase 2 results showed a 49% cut in the risk of recurrence or death.

• Next up: talks with the FDA on an approval filing, and readouts from trials in lung, bladder, kidney, pancreatic and gastric cancers, with a kidney-cancer readout possible by year-end.

• Shorter term, expect turbulence: shares fell double digits this morning as traders locked in gains, and most of Wall Street's freshly raised price targets still sit below Wednesday's closing price.

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⚠️ Disclaimer: Not financial advice. Do your research before making any trades.