Moderna shares plummeted Monday as Covid-19 vaccine makers led a turbulent market decline, pushing the stock to its lowest level in nearly a year after disappointing study results and a slew of sales from the firm’s top executives added to concerns, causing one of last year’s top-performing stocks to drop more than 70%.
Moderna stock plunged as much as 13% on Monday to a 10-month low of less than $140, bringing the company down more than 30% in the previous month after a sell-off focusing on technology and healthcare industries whose valuations rose during the epidemic.
According to Bank of America analyst Geoff Meacham, the rout has been particularly bad for Covid-19-related stocks in recent weeks, and pharmaceutical giant Pfizer, down 2% Monday, has also been caught in the mix despite the promise of its Covid antiviral pill, after it warned in its fourth-quarter earnings report that vaccine sales will slow this year.
With Covid cases falling from all-time highs, experts have increasingly questioned whether vaccines will be a sustainable revenue stream in the years ahead, and a study released Friday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found Moderna and Pfizer booster shots lost significant effectiveness after about four months.
Moderna’s latest losses come on the heels of a flurry of regulatory documents on Friday evening, which revealed that four Moderna executives, including billionaire CEO Stéphane Bancel, sold a total of 23,281 shares for around $3.6 million last week.
Bancel sold 19,000 shares for roughly $155 each, netting nearly $3 million in pre-tax gains, as part of a trading strategy that has allowed the 49-year-old sell more than 2 million shares throughout the epidemic.
A Moderna representative stated in a statement that Bancel “personally participated in every single one” of the firm’s investment rounds up to its initial public offering in 2018 and still owns 21.8 million shares of Moderna’s common stock.
