Five investing lessons from Covid-19 vaccine
The pace of vaccination across the globe is accelerating with each passing day. It is hopes that in next 6 months, we may have a reasonable number of people inoculated against Covid-19 infection; and the life may begin to normalize (even if it is new normal!) and become more predictable as compared to the life in 2020. However, from investors’ perspective a rather strange thing seems to be happening. Many investors had bought shares of leading vaccine manufacturers in the hope of extraordinary gains. To their disappointment, many of them are suffering losses. Pfizer Inc. (-8.1% in one year) and AstraZeneca (-4.75% in one year) are two examples; though Moderna Inc (up 740% in one year) has done well. In Indian context, AstraZeneca (-20% YTD 2021); Pfizer (-13% YTD 2021) Dr Reddy’s Lab (-8% YTD 2020) have all performed poorly on stock exchanges. The other listed vaccine prospect Cadila Healthcare (-2% YTD 2021) is also doing poorly. Obviously, it is a case of the excessive exuber...