Moderna Stock Crash Intensifies: Losses Top $130 Billion After Scientists Find Covid Boosters Aren’t Halting Omicron Infections

Moderna Stock Crash Intensifies: Losses Top $130 Billion After Scientists Find Covid Boosters Aren’t Halting Omicron Infections

Share to Linkedin Battered by a steep broad-market selloff this week, Moderna shares fell for a sixth-straight day Friday as experts questioned whether Covid-19 vaccine sales alone will help justify the firm's meteoric valuation, intensifying a crash that's wiped out more than 60% of the value in one of last year's top stocks and turned it into this year's worst performer. Moderna was last year's third best-performing stock in the S&P—but it's now this year's worst. Moderna stock fell as much as 5% in early trading Friday to an eight-month low of $160, pushing shares down more than 20% over the past week amid growing research suggesting Moderna's Covid-19 booster, while very effective against previous strains, has been less effective against the rapidly spreading omicron variant. Speaking to Yahoo! Finance on Thursday, Jefferies analyst Michael Yee said the "overly high expectations" set last year, as Moderna's Covid-19 vaccine became widely available to the public, will "lead to challenges... as people digest" what's next for the firm beyond Covid vaccines. Yee said the recent stock drawback has helped put Moderna's valuation in line with other biotechnology competitors, but he warned analysts increasingly expect Covid vaccine sales—currently Moderna's sole revenue source from