Here are the most important news, trends and analysis that investors need to start their trading day:
1. Stock futures drop, a day after Wall Street had resumed its upswing
Traders work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in New York City, March 21, 2022.
Brendan McDermid | Reuters
2. Moderna vaccine for kids under 6 was up to 44% effective against omicron
With her husband Stephen by her side Erin Shih hugs her children Avery 6, and Aidan, 11, after they got their second Moderna COVID-19 vaccines at Kaiser Permanente Los Angeles Medical Center on Friday, June 25, 2021.
Sarah Reingewirtz | MediaNews Group | Getty Images
Moderna’s two-dose Covid vaccine was about 44% effective at preventing infection from the omicron variant in children 6 months to under 2 years old and about 38% effective for children 2 years to 5 years old, according to data released by the company Wednesday. None of the kids developed severe illness and the majority of breakthrough cases were mild. Moderna plans to ask the Food and Drug Administration to grant emergency use authorization for the vaccine for children under 6 years old as soon as possible.
3. One of the black boxes found from Boeing jet crash in China
Photo taken with a mobile phone shows pieces of a crashed passenger plane’s wreckage found at the crash site in Tengxian County, south China’s Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, March 22, 2022.
Zhou Hua | Xinhua News Agency | Getty Images
One of the two black boxes from Monday’s China Eastern Airlines plane crash has been found, Chinese state media said Wednesday. Officials said the black box was “heavily damaged” and it was hard to tell whether it was the one that records flight data or cockpit communications with air traffic controllers. A Boeing 737-800 jet carrying 132 people nose-dived Monday in a rural, mountainous part of the southern region of Guangxi. While China has not confirmed any fatalities, authorizes said late Tuesday that rescue workers haven’t found any survivors.
4. DOT reveals infrastructure grants; CEOs set to testify on chip shortages
Secretary of the Department of Transportation Pete Buttigieg delivers remarks on new transportation initiatives at an event with U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris in the South Court Auditorium at Eisenhower Executive Office Building on March 07, 2022 in Washington, DC.
Anna Moneymaker | Getty Images
Department of Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said Wednesday the administration was ready to dole out $2.9 billion in grants for state and local infrastructure projects, such as highway, bridge, freight, port and public transit expansions and repairs. The money is part of the bipartisan $1 trillion infrastructure bill that Biden signed into law four months ago.
Signage at the entrance to the Intel headquarters in Santa Clara, California, U.S., on Tuesday, Oct. 19, 2021.
David Paul Morris | Bloomberg | Getty Images
The CEOs of American semiconductor giants Intel and Micron are set to testify before the Senate Commerce Committee on Wednesday to make the case for $52 billion in U.S. subsidies for chip manufacturing. A persistent industrywide shortage of chips has disrupted production in the automotive and electronics industries.
5. GameStop soars as the company’s chairman buys more shares
A GameStop location in New York, Dec. 23, 2021.
Scott Mlyn | CNBC
GameStop’s stock, which surged nearly 31% on Tuesday, jumped another 12.5% in premarket trading Wednesday after the video game retailer’s chairman, Ryan Cohen, bought another 100,000 shares. The purchase bring his ownership to 11.9% as the activist investor, who also co-founded online pet retailer Chewy, tries to move GameStop into e-commerce. Two weeks ago, Cohen revealed a big stake in Bed Bath & Beyond and pushed for a turnaround there. Both Bed Bath & Beyond and GameStop have seen sharp gains and losses in the meme stock craze over the past 15 months or so.
— CNBC reporters Yun Li, Thomas Franck, Spencer Kimball and Evelyn Cheng as well as The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.
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