New York (AFP)

Wall Street progressed Monday shortly after the opening, supported by news deemed reassuring concerning the research and development of a vaccine against the coronavirus.

Around 1:50 p.m. GMT, its flagship index, the Dow Jones Industrial Average, rose 0.83% to 26,291.54 points.

The Nasdaq, with a strong technological coloring, gained 1.23% to 10,748.31 points.

The broad S&P 500 index gained 0.71% to 3,207.68 points.

The New York Stock Exchange gained ground last week, largely ignoring the surge in new cases of contamination in the United States: from Monday to Friday, the Dow Jones had gained 0.96% and the Nasdaq had climbed 4 , 02%, ending at a record.

"On Friday, the market was enthusiastic about an announcement from Gilead Sciences presenting new positive data on the treatment of Covid-19 with remdesivir," recalls Patrick O'Hare of Briefing.com.

"Today, the market is enthusiastic to learn that the potential vaccines resulting from the partnership between Pfizer and BioNTech have benefited from an accelerated examination procedure by the FDA", the American drug agency, adds Mr. O 'Hare.

The American laboratories Pfizer (+ 3.39%) and German BioNTech (+ 10.80%) announced that they intended to start the next phase of their clinical trials this month on 30,000 patients. The companies hope to produce 100 million doses of the vaccine by the end of 2020 and more than 1.2 billion by the end of 2021.

In the meantime, the rate of infections in the United States continued to increase. Florida has registered more than 15,000 new cases of coronavirus in 24 hours, according to figures published Sunday, a record for an American state, so far owned by California.

The pandemic has claimed more than 135,000 lives in the country, according to the Johns Hopkins University report.

In addition, market players will have their eyes turned this week to the quarterly results of the major American banks. JPMorgan Chase (+ 0.95%), Citigroup (-0.85%) and Wells Fargo (-1.08%) will release their figures on Tuesday.

According to analysts' projections, the profits of companies listed on the S&P 5000 should fall by more than 44% between April and June.

On the bond market, the 10-year rate on the US debt stood at 0.6562%, up from Friday evening (0.6447%).

© 2020 AFP