New York (AFP)

Wall Street's flagship index, the Dow Jones Industrial Average, finished in the green on Monday, first benefiting from a new coronavirus vaccine announcement and then enthusiastically welcoming the news that Janet Yellen was going to be appointed Secretary of the Treasury by Joe Biden.

The Dow Jones, which posted a weekly loss last week, gained 1.12% to 29,591.27 points.

The Nasdaq, with strong technological coloring, took 0.22% to 11,880.63 points and the extended S&P 500 index rose 0.56% to 3,577.59 points.

Joe Biden plans to appoint Janet Yellen, 74, as Treasury secretary, a source close to the President-elect's team told AFP on Monday, confirming information from the Wall Street Journal.

The first woman to chair the Federal Reserve (Fed) between 2014 and 2018, Ms. Yellen would also be the first woman to command the US Treasury, a post equivalent to that of Minister of Finance.

This is the most important ministry in the United States after that of the Secretary of State, in charge of Foreign Affairs and to which diplomat Antony Blinken should be appointed.

According to Gregori Volokhine, president of Meeschaert Financial Services, Ms. Yellen is considered "a friend of the markets, because she has said she is in favor of more budgetary spending" to help the American economy hit hard by the consequences of the coronavirus.

"It is also a choice that would reassure the continuity of the Fed's policy," adds Mr. Volokhine.

"Jerome Powell, who succeeded Janet Yellen, has been asking for a fiscal relay for almost a year" from the Treasury.

Ms. Yellen also enjoys the support of the left wing of the Democratic Party, according to an AFP source.

In the first part of the session, Wall Street took advantage of the announcement of the British laboratory AstraZeneca, that its vaccine, developed in association with the University of Oxford, was effective at 70% on average against the coronavirus, or even at 90% in some cases, based on interim results from large-scale clinical trials in the UK and Brazil.

AstraZeneca's share (-1.98%) retreated, however, with some analysts noting that the data published by the laboratory was not as convincing as that of Moderna (+ 3.50%) and the Pfizer alliance. (-0.49%) / BioNTech (+ 2.33%), which also announced major developments concerning their vaccines in the past two weeks.

© 2020 AFP