It’s not every day an S&P 500 stock jumps more than 100%. In fact, it’s only happened twice in the past 25 years.

Moderna stock jumped 177% Wednesday following its historic cancer vaccine breakthrough. The last stock to more than double in a day in the index was Hartford Insurance Group in December 2008.

Before its positive trial results, Moderna’s shares had risen 114% in 2026 largely due to hopes its customized cancer vaccine would prove effective. But the data still caught the market off guard.

The stock is now up 491% for the year, second only to memory-storage company Sandisk. It’s the only non-tech play in the top five—Dell, Micron, and Seagate complete the list.

Anyone who bought the stock after the hantavirus outbreak in May, amid speculative hopes Moderna could deliver a vaccine for it, probably can’t believe their luck.

It’s unlikely we’ll get another Moderna moment soon, if history is a guide. But it’s a reminder for investors to look at lesser-loved sectors. The AI or momentum trade has faltered recently, and the next hot stock could come from elsewhere.

Shares of vaccine makers had a tough time following the appointment of vaccine skeptic Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as health secretary in late 2024. However, over the past year, the iShare Biotechnology exchange-traded fund is up 56%.

Beaten-down areas of the market are worth exploring. Cryptocurrencies are surging again with President Donald Trump pushing for Congress to pass the long-awaited Clarity Act. Strategy, Coinbase, and other related stocks are in line for a big rebound. 

As the AI trade stagnates, check out unloved segments of the market.

—Callum Keown

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Moderna’s dramatic ascent this year has been fueled by optimism that its personalized cancer vaccine could reshape oncology and redefine the company beyond its pandemic-era success. Now a successful Phase 3 trial of its cancer vaccine allows it to ask regulators for marketing approval.

• A combination of Moderna’s intismeran autogene vaccine and Merck’s Keytruda is more effective than Keytruda alone in preventing the recurrence of skin cancer. A study of 1,100 showed the combination kept patients cancer-free for longer than the standard of care after their melanomas had been cut out.

• Moderna shares surged 177% on Wednesday, their largest daily percentage increase on record. Moderna has struggled to shake its reputation as a Covid-and-flu company. The biotech shot to prominence at the height of the pandemic, when it delivered the second Covid vaccine approved by U.S. regulators.

• That product, Spikevax, remains a cornerstone of Moderna’s portfolio, even as revenue dwindles. Moderna’s flu portfolio also remains a major contributor to its top line. However, investors are holding out for a true breakthrough: a high-impact product that can lift the stock back toward its 2021 highs.

• Consequently, attention has turned to Moderna’s intismeran autogene. Shares rose steeply in June when Moderna and Merck jointly reported positive five year follow-up data in a Phase 2 trial. Cancer recurrence or death was halved among patients who had received the vaccine-Keytruda combination.

What’s Next: Crucially, the success offers validation of Moderna’s patented mRNA platform, offering a major win at a time when the technology faces scrutiny from regulators. Jefferies analyst Andrew Tsai anticipates Moderna could be marketing over seven products across respiratory, oncology, and rare diseases by 2027.

—Mackenzie Tatananni and Bill Alpert

Many Federal Reserve policymakers believe that raising the benchmark rate may be necessary if inflation doesn’t decline, according to the latest minutes of their deliberations last month. The minutes show how divided policymakers stand about the path forward for rates.

• Only “some” of the policymakers felt that the current rate policy might not be “sufficiently restrictive” to achieve the Fed’s 2% inflation goal. In July, three Fed presidents dissented against the decision to hold interest rates steady, arguing rates should rise.

• But data released in August push against their case for hikes, making the minutes released Wednesday feel a bit dated. July’s consumer price index showed core prices, which excludes the volatile food and energy categories, increased 2.5%. That marked core inflation’s lowest reading since March 2021.

• Some committee members have already shared some thoughts. Dallas Fed President Lorie Logan and Minneapolis Fed President Neel Kashkari, who both dissented in July, have said publicly that minor adjustments higher in the fed-funds rate now could prevent sharper adjustments later.

• In a LinkedIn post, Cleveland Fed President Beth Hammack, another of the dissenters, hammered home that this is now the sixth calendar year of elevated inflation. She said the Fed should increase rates to fight inflation that has been above-target for too long.

What’s Next: Others have argued that patience might be prudent. Markets had already priced in lower chances of an imminent interest-rate hike. A month ago, traders placed a 51% probability on a hike in September, according to the CME’s FedWatch tool. Today, that probability is just 34%.

—Josh Schafer

Rising yields have been a worry for investors in recent weeks—but the government signaled on Wednesday that it is willing to do more to help the bond market. The surprise announcement drove up fixed-income prices and gave stocks a boost, too.

• The Treasury said unexpectedly that it would at least double the size of buybacks for longer-duration bonds. It’s raising its maximum size of repurchases for 10-to-20 and 20-to-30-year bonds to “at least $4 billion per operation.”

• The Treasury typically talks about buybacks during its quarterly refunding announcement. The last one was on Aug. 5, when the buyback schedule stated a maximum of $2 billion in buybacks for the same maturities.

• The increase isn’t a particularly big amount, but the accelerated buyback is a sign the Treasury is willing to intervene. That will help ease investors’ worries about higher long-term interest rates, which have weighed on stocks lately.

• The yield on the 10-year Treasury note fell to 4.65% on Wednesday, while the 30-year yield dropped to 5.19%. Stocks also latched on to the rally, with the S&P 500 closing 0.2% higher.

What’s Next: “The signaling is important here,” said Dirk Willer, Citi Research’s head of global macro strategy. The surprise move tells the market that when the 30-year bond yield makes a break for 5.3% there could be more action from the Treasury, he added.

—Karishma Vanjani and George Glover

Marvell Technology has given its client, the Alphabet-owned Google the right to buy up to $12.2 billion of its shares. Their working relationship covers large aspects of Google’s in-demand chips, including tensor processing units, and the stake can only be exercised if Google meets purchase targets through 2033. 

• Rival Broadcom also has a deal with Google to develop ​and supply custom artificial-intelligence chips through 2031. B. Riley analyst Craig Ellis says Marvell’s work and warrant agreement with Google broadens Marvell’s hyperscale diversification and raises and extends its revenue growth outlook.

• Stifel analysts likewise see the Marvell agreement as a signal of progress and “growth in spades.” The firm estimates the commercial agreement could be worth about $120 billion in cumulative revenue for Marvell over slightly more than six years.

• The warrants give Google the right to buy up to 58.9 million shares of Marvell common stock at $206.58 a share. They vest in stages, including more than 1.3 million in the first year and then at each $500 million in product revenue, the filing said.

• Separately, the combined revenue of the top five publicly listed NAND flash-memory brands rose 77% in the second quarter from the previous quarter, to $68.87 billion, according to new data from research firm Trendforce. Micron has 15%.

What’s Next: Demand for Google’s in-house chips has risen as many companies look to diversify and reduce dependence on Nvidia. Alphabet has added $15 billion to its 2026 forecast for AI spending, to between $195 billion and $205 billion.

—Kit Norton and Adam Clark

With the chances of Congress passing an industry friendly bill this year vanishing, crypto firms are more dependent than ever on President Donald Trump and his regulators. On Wednesday, the White House held a rally for the digital assets industry, making the case for Congress to pass the Clarity Act.