Moderna’s 177% Cancer Vaccine Shock

 

The market split Wednesday as a historic biotech rally overpowered another weak technology session.  Moderna nearly tripled after delivering the first positive Phase 3 result for a personalized mRNA cancer vaccine, sending Merck to a record and health care sharply higher. Treasury support cooled the bond selloff, but Fed minutes showed broader support for rate hikes and concern that AI spending is creating inflation before productivity.  Stocks skipped the megacaps and piled into $MRNA, $BULL, $NVAX, $IOVA, and $PURR. The live debate was whether scientific breakthroughs and record growth justified the chase, or whether momentum had already outrun the numbers.  Today's Briefing: Powered by Stocks Community API. After the Bell: Moderna and Merck ignite a cancer-vaccine rally  Stocks: Target splits retail while Estée Lauder restores its glow  Macro: The Fed adds AI spending to its inflation watch  What's Trending Now on Stocks

AFTER THE BELL Cancer Gets Squeezed 🧬

Moderna did not cure cancer Wednesday, but its stock climbed like it did. The firm demonstrated thefirst positive Phase 3 result for a personalized mRNA cancer vaccine, nearly tripling the stock, also sending Merck to a record, and turning oncology into the market’s loudest momentum trade.

“I have a feeling that this is just the beginning of a new field,” Jane Healy, Merck vice president of oncology, told The Wall Street Journal.

The RIP:  $MRNA ( ▲ 176.97% ) rocketed 177% on 186.2M shares, or 33.7x recent pace, while $MRK jumped 12.6%. $BNTX gained 22%, $TEM added 24.1%, $LLY rose 4.5%, and $XBI climbed 5.9%.

The 1,137-patient trial tested Moderna’s tumor-specific intismeran vaccine with Merck’s Keytruda after high-risk melanoma had been surgically removed. The combination delayed recurrence and distant spread versus just using Keytruda alone, but the companies withheld the actual Phase 3 hazard ratios until a medical meeting later this year.

“The stocks are reacting like you’re going to use this vaccine after every surgery in cancer, and I think that’s a massive overreach,” Leerink Partners analyst Daina Graybosch told The Wall Street Journal.

Wall Street bought the whole cancer-science project anyway. Alot of biotech caught the upside. If the full data cannot justify Wednesday’s valuation reset, the market will rediscover that personalized vaccines are considerably harder to manufacture than rocket emojis. All in all though, a great day.

STOCKS Target’s Turnaround Splits Retail

Target gave the retail aisle a fresh plot twist Wednesday. The big-box chain raised its annual sales outlook after shoppers finally returned, while TJX stumbled on execution problems, Lowe’s rewarded a messy beat, and Walmart waited at Thursday’s checkout.

The RIP:  $TGT ( ▲ 4.28% ) gained 4.3%, $LOW rose 2.3%, $TJX fell 4.1%, and $WMT slipped 0.8%. Target reported $4.11 EPS on $26.54B in revenue, with comparable sales up 3.8%, traffic up 3.6%, and digital comps up 8.7%.

Target now expects roughly 5% full-year sales growth, up from 4%, but a nearly $1B tariff refundcontributed about $1.65 per share to quarterly profit. The operating signals were cleaner than the headline EPS: more shoppers visited, same-day delivery grew, and management’s price cuts helped win back demand.

Walmart reports before Thursday’s open, with Wall Street expecting $0.74 EPS, $186.62B in sales, and 3.8% comparable-sales growth. The Community Read: The $TGT room is bullish on the turnaround, test the traffic gains ->

“$WMT TGT beat earnings. Good for TGT, good for WMT. WMT ER Thursday!” @EquitiesHam

Beauty Gets Its Glow Back

Estée Lauder shares jumped Wednesday after the prestige-beauty giant capped its turnaround year with strong results, and raised its fiscal 2027 profitability outlook. Skin care, fragrance, China, travel retail, and online sales helped Estée Lauder return to growth after three annual revenue declines.

The RIP:  $EL ( ▲ 16.31% ) climbed 16.3% on 13.6M shares, five times its recent pace. Adjusted EPS reached $0.39 on $3.64B in quarterly revenue. Fiscal 2026 net sales rose 5% to $15.05B, organic sales grew 3%, adjusted EPS increased 66%, and operating margin expanded 320 basis points. Management expects 3% to 5% organic sales growth in fiscal 2027, with restructuring projected to deliver $1.2B in annual gross benefits.

QUICK HIT Tiny Story on OpenAI  The OpenAI and Anthropic IPOs’ are arriving soon, likely in the fall and winter before the year is up, and tech Twitter, my doomscrolling dirty pleasure, is filled with talk. This week features doomer posting about OpenAI, as anyone worth their influencer payouts yells out ‘bubble’ to gain engagement.  OpenAI recently told investors about its revenue, WSJ learned, and the numbers were not great.  The RIP: OpenAI’s Q2 revenue rose 18% to $6.7Bfrom $5.7B, while its operating loss widened to $12.3B from $9.3B. Meanwhile Anthropic’s revenue more than doubled to $11.6B, overtaking OpenAI for the first time, and it reported a small adjusted operating profit.  Look, $7B is great for most companies, just not for generation defining trillions of dollars in datacenter-hoarding companies. Operating loss was near $9.3B in Q1, up to $12.3B in Q2, pacing faster than growth.  Then came a tweet from Sam Alt-Man himself, that said the firm was pausing its development of the next best model, just for two weeks, for security concerns. I found the tweet by way of a tech reporter parroting the words, ‘we are pausing our crazy spend on AI so we can hype up our revenue for our IPO, we love money, and we know the rest of the industry will join us to keep the grift going.’ Or something to that effect.

POPS & DROPS Trending Now $BULL +20% | Webull: Record quarter leaves one valuation fight 24.4K WATCHERS · BULLISH · NORMAL ACTIVITY Webull reported record quarterly revenue of $198.8M, up 51%, while adjusted operating profit reached $62.6M and customer assets jumped 79%. The brokerage delivered the growth traders wanted, but the bullish room is still deciding how much of Robinhood’s valuation premium Webull actually deserves.  $WOLF -16% | Wolfspeed: The beat could not outrun the losses 20.2K WATCHERS · NEUTRAL · LOW ACTIVITY Wolfspeed fell after hours despite beating loss expectations, as quarterly revenue declined to $149.6M and the company recorded a $145.4M net loss. AI data-center revenue more than doubled, but the neutral room is weighing that growth against another quarter of heavy losses and a $140M to $160M revenue outlook.  $BMNR +12% | BitMine: Ethereum rallied, bears stayed put 28.9K WATCHERS · BEARISH · LOW ACTIVITY BitMine surged with Ethereum after disclosing earlier this week that its treasury reached 5.82M ETH, roughly 4.8% of the token’s circulating supply. The company is approaching its 5% ownership target, but the bearish room remains focused on dilution, treasury valuation, and how quickly crypto gains can reverse.

WHAT’S ON DECK Tomorrow’s Top Things

Macro: Weekly jobless claims (8:30 AM ET).  Pre-Market Earnings: $WMT Walmart Inc, $KNDI Kandi Technologies Group Inc, $CAN Canaan Inc - ADR, $BLRX Bioline Rx Ltd - ADR, $DE Deere & Co., +14 more.  After-Market Earnings: $ROST Ross Stores, Inc., $FLUX Flux Power Holdings inc, $FINV FinVolution Group - ADR.