Moderna Stock Surges 12% On First Day In The Nasdaq-100, Adding Nearly $10 Billion To Reach Highest Level Since 2022
Shares jumped to their highest point since 2022 as Moderna joined the index, extending a nearly 600% run so far this year.
Moderna shares rose about 12% to $220.83 in Friday trading, the company's first day in the Nasdaq-100. The gain added about $9.5 billion in market value, lifting the company to roughly $88 billion.
The stock closed Thursday at $197.00. By 11:46 a.m. ET Friday it was up about 8% at $213.40, a price it had not reached since December 2022, and it kept climbing from there.
The advance carried shares past their previous 52-week high of $212.22. The 52-week low is $22.28. More than 23.5 million shares had changed hands with the session still under way, about 1.4 times a full day's average.
Why the index seat matters
Moderna filled the opening left when Paramount's takeover of Warner Bros. Discovery ended trading in that company's shares. The combined business, Skydance, now trades on the New York Stock Exchange.
More than 200 funds and other products are tied to the Nasdaq-100, Yahoo Finance reported, citing Nasdaq.
Up 568% this year
Moderna stock finished Thursday 568% above where it started 2026, Yahoo Finance reported. Over the same stretch, the S&P 500 gained about 14% and biotech stocks as a group about 1%.
Shares rose roughly 5% on Wednesday, placing Moderna among the S&P 500's strongest names that day, according to Investopedia. Analysts have also narrowed their forecasts for Moderna's per-share losses in 2026 and 2027 over the past 60 days, Yahoo Finance reported.
The pipeline
Moderna's covid vaccine, built on its mRNA technology, won U.S. authorization in December 2020. As of March, the company had 25 mRNA drug candidates in clinical testing, spanning infectious and rare genetic diseases, cancer and cardiovascular disease.
In cancer, a personalized therapy from Merck and Moderna met the main goal of a late-stage melanoma trial limited to certain high-risk patients, according to Yahoo Finance. That goal was how long patients went without the cancer coming back. The therapy also came out ahead on a key secondary measure: the time before the disease spread to distant parts of the body.
What's next
Moderna is scheduled to report quarterly results around late October or early November. For the quarter ended June 30, it lost $1.97 a share, about 7% less than analysts had forecast.
