J&J Investors Are Fixated on Vaccines Like Everyone Else

The news cast a shadow on J&J’s third-quarter earnings Tuesday, which showed an otherwise improving business. A better-than-expected recovery for medical devices, the unit hit hardest by Covid-related care slowdowns, helped it beat Wall Street expectations for quarterly sales and raise full-year guidance. The vaccine news seems to have outweighed that in investor’s minds, though it didn’t entirely overwhelm it, with J&J shares falling 2% in morning trading.
The pause could be brief if the illness proves unrelated to the vaccine, and it may be a few days before there’s more information, according to the company. Whatever the case, the halt may prove concerning because it’s the second potential safety issue involving a similar kind of vaccine. Both J&J and AstraZeneca are developing shots that use a common cold virus engineered to be harmless to deliver material that prompts a protective response. It’s also the second pause among the four