U.S. stocks dropped on Friday after the trial result from Johnson & Johnson’s coronavirus vaccine disappointed some investors, while worries about retail trading frenzy persisted.

The Dow Jones Industrial average lost 370 points, or 1.2%. The S&P 500 lost 0.9% as all 11 sectors traded in the red. The Nasdaq Composite slid 1%.

JNJ said its one-dose vaccine demonstrated 66% effectiveness overall in protecting against Covid-19. The vaccine was 72% effective in the United States, 66% in Latin America and 57% in South Africa after four weeks, the company said. The vaccine offered complete protection against Covid-related hospitalizations. Shares of JNJ dropped 3.6%.

Stocks had rallied to record highs on the hope that vaccines would be effective against Covid to allow a smooth economic reopening before the end of the year. New mutations more resilient to vaccines could upend that rosy outlook for investors.

Heightened speculative trading by retail investors also continued to unnerve the market. Shares of GameStop doubled after Robinhood said it would allow limited buying of the stock and other heavily shorted names after restricting access the day before. Robinhood raised more than $1 billion from its existing investors overnight, in addition to tapping bank credit lines, to ensure it had the capital required to allow some trading again in the volatile stocks.

Investors are concerned that if GameStop continues to rise in such a volatile fashion, it may ripple through the financial markets, causing losses at brokers like Robinhood and forcing hedge funds who bet against the stock to sell other securities to raise cash.

There are also fears that the GameStop mania is a sign of a larger bubble in the market and that its unraveling could also cause turbulence and hit retail investors hard. A number of lawmakers also called for an investigation into the chaotic trading. The Securities and Exchange Commission said Friday it will look into regulated body’s actions to uncover if the decisions made disadvantaged investors.

“Between Washington calling for hearings and reports Robinhood was forced to not only draw down on its credit lines but also raise $1B from existing investors, the entire situation continues to erode market confidence,” Adam Crisafulli, founder of Vital Knowledge, said in a note Friday.

It’s been a volatile week on Wall Street. The Dow lost more than 600 points on Wednesday, suffering its worst sell-off in three months. Then the blue-chip benchmark rebounded by 300 points on Thursday amid a broad market rally. All three major averages have lost at least 1% this week.

The market also experienced the highest trading volume in years as the mania heated up. On Wednesday, total market volume hit more than 23.7 billion shares, surpassing the level during the height of the financial crisis in 2008. Thursday also saw extremely heavy trading with more than 19 billion shares changing hands.

Sumber : www.cnbc.com