Better Coronavirus Stock: Altimmune vs. Vaxart

A COVID-19 vaccine will be worth billions and billions of dollars. It will likely be the most valuable drug on the planet. There are many pharmaceutical companies are pursuing a vaccine, and the market has already started rewarding some of them. Right now the big winners are small-cap biotech vaccine specialists. For instance, Novavax (NASDAQ: NVAX) is up a startling 2,500% in 2020.

Novavax is not the only winner, however. Many other biotechs have a good shot at a COVID-19 vaccine, and the market is rewarding those stocks as well. One such biotech company, Inovio, has seen its stock rise 578% since January. Another tiny biotech, Altimmune (NASDAQ: ALT), climbed 438% in the past six months. And so far, tiny Vaxart (NASDAQ: VXRT) is up almost as much as Novavax, running up 2,135% since January.

Is it too late to buy one of these winners? I've been a happy owner of Novavax all year. So the question for me is whether I should take a little profit. But it also might be smart to diversify and buy another of these companies, because I think all of these small-cap stocks have plenty of room to run higher. So today I'm going to look at Novavax competitors Altimmune and Vaxart. Is either of these vaccine biotech stocks a buy?

Source Fool.com