ASX back in rally mode after outage; Universal Store goes live and gains 20pc

The ASX (ASX:ASX) restarts trading after yesterday’s outage
Shares rally following the latest promising news in the COVID-19 vaccine race
Casual fashion outlet Universal Store Holdings (ASX:UNI) debuts at market open and gains nearly 20 per cent

The ASX (ASX:ASX) has recommenced trading after yesterday’s outage which halted the market 20 minutes in – and shares are up again.

The local bourse paused all trading at 10.24am to investigate “market data issues” after it migrated to a new trading platform last weekend.

Despite the ASX outage limiting the trading day, the ASX 200 shut 1.2 per cent higher.

Today, true to promise, the ASX opened for trade. Trading picked up from where it left off yesterday with the ASX 200 up by another 0.5 per cent.

ASX Trade equity market is on schedule to transition into OPEN at normal time – 10am.

— ASX 🏛 The heart of Australia's financial markets (@ASX) November 16, 2020

Another COVID-19 vaccine candidate

For the second Tuesday in a row, markets rallied following positive results from a COVID-19 vaccine candidate.

This time it was a candidate by US-based Moderna which was over 90 per cent effective, just like Pfizer’s vaccine candidate.

While the results were only interim data, it hopes to file for emergency use authorisation (EUA) with the FDA within days.

It also provides hope that the COVID-19 pandemic, which has taken 1.3 million lives, infected nearly 55 million and disrupted hundreds of millions more lives, could eventually come to an end.

Moderna hopes to produce about 20 million doses this year and then somewhere between 500 million and 1 billion doses in 2021.

While the Australian government has not yet signed a specific purchase agreement as it has with Pfizer, it could nonetheless enter Australia through the COVAX facility – a coalition of countries eyeing vaccines if and when they become available.