| Vaccines provide hope for pandemic end, Trump fights on, and another day of record Covid cases in the U.S. BreakthroughsA vaccine developed by Pfizer Inc. showing "extraordinary" results was greeted with an overwhelmingly positive reaction from markets. Adding to the good news was the granting of emergency-use authorization to an antibody therapy developed by Eli Lilly & Co. Experts sounded a note of caution on the Pfizer shot, with questions remaining over how long it would maintain effectiveness. The final stage trial of a Chinese vaccine in Brazil has been halted due to a serious adverse event. Election Joe Biden is moving ahead with his transition plans even as he has yet to be officially designated the winner of last week's election. The president-elect will today speak about the Affordable Care Act, which he has promised to expand, and is likely to name his chief of staff this week. President Donald Trump's legal team continues to pursue legal avenues to reverse the outcome of the vote, and Attorney General William Barr has authorized Justice Department officials to open inquiries into potential irregularities. Richard Pilger, who led the Justice Department's Election Crimes branch, resigned in the wake of Barr's memo. Record casesWhile the news on the rapid development of coronavirus vaccines is very welcome, the pandemic continues to rage across America. The U.S. reported a record 142,000 cases on Monday -- the fifth straight day with a tally over 100,000. Joe Biden warned yesterday that the country is facing a "dark winter" in a speech in which he implored people to wear masks and continue practicing social distancing. There were more cases in the administration with U.S. Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson testing positive. He attended a White House election event last Tuesday. President Donald Trump's chief of staff, Mark Meadows, tested positive for coronavirus the day after he attended the same event. Markets mixed Yesterday's monster stock rally started to run out of steam before the close, and we're seeing something of a mixed bag this morning as investors adjust their portfolios away from pandemic plays. Overnight, the MSCI Asia Pacific Index added 0.4% while Japan's Topix index closed 1.1% higher. In Europe, the Stoxx 600 Index was showing a gain of 0.2% by 5:50 a.m. as banks rose while tech stocks fell. It is a similar story in U.S. futures, with S&P 500 contracts pointing to a small decline at the open. The 10-year Treasury yield was at 0.941%, oil held above $40 a barrel and gold recovered some of the ground lost yesterday. Coming up...The Supreme Court will consider challenges to Obamacare later. September U.S. job openings numbers are at 10:00 a.m. Today's monetary policy speakers are Dallas Fed President Robert Kaplan, Atlanta Fed President Raphael Bostic, Fed Vice Chair for Supervision Randal Quarles, Fed Governor Lael Brainard and Boston Fed President Eric Rosengren. Lyft Inc. is among the companies reporting results and Apple Inc. holds an online event titled "One More Thing." What we've been readingThis is what's caught our eye over the last 24 hours. And finally, here's what Joe's interested in this morningYesterday the world got the welcome news that a vaccine being developed by Pfizer and BioNTech appears to be more effective than expectations. The news sent markets around the world absolutely soaring. If the vaccine ultimately does come to fruition, and is deployed at large scale, it will in part be a story of the power of public investment. Back in August, the German government spent $445 million to help accelerate the manufacturing and development capacity of the vaccine. Meanwhile, through an endeavor called Operation Warp Speed, the U.S. has pre-committed to buying hundreds of millions of units of the vaccine if it ultimately wins approval from the FDA.  As Stephanie Baker and Cynthia Koons wrote last month in their profile of Operation Warp Speed, in addition to spending billions of dollars to accelerate the vaccine development, the program is a "mechanism to coordinate among private companies and an array of U.S. government bodies." It's not there yet, but so far that appears to be an effective endeavor. The program calls to mind a book by the venture capitalist Bill Janeway, in which he argues that the most impressive technological success stories have come out of programs like this, where the government underwrote substantial public investment to accelerate private innovation in order to bring products to market that have widespread positive externalities. The U.S. semiconductor industry is probably the most famous example. Aggressive, goal-oriented public investment works.
In a sense, there may end up being two massive public success stories to come out of this crisis. The vaccine would be one of them. The CARES Act may go down as the other, having helped rapidly reverse depression-level economic activity by putting hands directly into people's pockets when the economy collapsed in the spring.
The question then arises, why don't we do these things more? We don't have to wait for crises in order to supercharge the buying power of American households, or accelerate the development of breakthrough technologies that would benefit society. We're witnessing the first hand the power of public investment. We can do it more. Joe Weisenthal is an editor at Bloomberg. The world's most influential leaders will be there. Will you? Click here to join Bloomberg New Economy Forum for a virtual Global Town Hall on November 16-19 and be part of change in real time. Like Bloomberg's Five Things? Subscribe for unlimited access to trusted, data-based journalism in 120 countries around the world and gain expert analysis from exclusive daily newsletters, The Bloomberg Open and The Bloomberg Close. | 
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