Vaccine progress lifts stocks, dollar still sickly

Vaccine progress lifts stocks, dollar still sickly

Vaccine progress lifts stocks, dollar still sickly

Vaccine progress lifts stocks, dollar still sickly

Vaccine progress lifts stocks, dollar still sickly

On Monday, Wall Street was pointing up 0.6 percent and Brent futures were nearly 1.5 percent stronger. (AP)

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Vaccine progress lifts stocks, dollar still sickly

STOXX index of Europe's 600 largest firms rises to its highest since February

Updated 24 November 2020

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LONDON: Investors scooped up stocks, commodities and emerging-market currencies and gave the dollar a wide berth as AstraZeneca and Oxford University provided markets with their now-regular Monday shot of encouraging COVID-19 vaccine news.

The STOXX index of Europe's 600 largest firms rose to its highest since February, Wall Street was pointing up 0.6 percent and Brent futures were nearly 1.5 percent stronger. AstraZeneca and Oxford vaccine, which is set to cost just a few dollars a shot and should be easier to ramp up and store than vaccines by Pfizer and BioNTech and Moderna, could also be up to 90 percent effective.

As the dollar buckled through a range it has been in for the past few months, the euro touched $1.19, but it was the emerging markets that are likely to benefit from a cheaper and easier-to-store drug that rallied the most.

South Africa's rand