Investors took profits on Friday while they could ahead of the weekend, explained Tom Essaye, founder of Sevens Report Research. Saturday and Sunday could easily bring unfortunate news on the war front—and traders would rather be able to sell any recent winnings at Friday’s earlier prices than wait for a potentially lower price at Monday’s open. On Feb. 27, however, he admitted from his Russian-language account that "Telegram channels are increasingly becoming a source of unverified information related to Ukrainian events." The channel appears to be part of the broader information war that has developed following Russia's invasion of Ukraine. The Kremlin has paid Russian TikTok influencers to push propaganda, according to a Vice News investigation, while ProPublica found that fake Russian fact check videos had been viewed over a million times on Telegram. Again, in contrast to Facebook, Google and Twitter, Telegram's founder Pavel Durov runs his company in relative secrecy from Dubai. Stocks dropped on Friday afternoon, as gains made earlier in the day on hopes for diplomatic progress between Russia and Ukraine turned to losses. Technology stocks were hit particularly hard by higher bond yields.
from ms