New York stocks soared Tuesday, briefly sending the Dow above the 30,000 threshold for the first time in U.S. history, as investors grew optimistic about the economic outlook following the start of the transition of power from U.S. President Donald Trump to President-elect Joe Biden.
Stocks opened higher as Trump finally gave the green light to start the transition process despite continuing his legal fight and other efforts to overturn the results of the Nov. 3 election.
Recent progress in the development of vaccines for the novel coronavirus also apparently helped stocks gain ground.
The University of Oxford and British drugmaker AstraZeneca Plc said Monday their vaccine candidate has shown up to 90 percent efficacy in trials.
The announcement followed other promising results from U.S. drugmakers Moderna Inc. and Pfizer Inc.
Pfizer on Friday became the first U.S. company to apply for emergency use authorization for its experimental coronavirus vaccine, marking a major step in the country's fight against the pandemic.
Moderna also said last week that its experimental vaccine was 94.5 percent effective in preventing COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus.
The series of successful findings has raised hopes toward a breakthrough in the nearly year-long global fight against the coronavirus pandemic.
Despite surges in the numbers of infections and deaths in the United States, Europe and elsewhere, investors took heart from these reports as a sign of movement toward controlling the infectious disease, traders said.
The Dow neared the 30,000 line in February, but the benchmark average went into a steep decline and fell below 19,000 in late March when the United States began to suffer stronger impacts from the pandemic.
As the U.S. government implemented stimulus measures and the Federal Reserve adopted a zero-interest rate monetary policy, however, U.S. stocks have gained ground gradually, pushing the Dow higher.
==Kyodo
© Kyodo News International, Inc., source Newswire
MODERNA, INC. 
