Markets continued to grapple with the economic and corporate earnings implications relating to the Russia-Ukraine conflict. “We have a ton of uncertainty right now,” said Stephanie Link, chief investment strategist and portfolio manager at Hightower Advisors. “We’re dealing with a war, we’re dealing with inflation. We don’t know what it means to earnings.” 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. That hurt tech stocks. For the past few weeks, the 10-year yield has traded between 1.72% and 2%, as traders moved into the bond for safety when Russia headlines were ugly—and out of it when headlines improved. Now, the yield is touching its pandemic-era high. If the yield breaks above that level, that could signal that it’s on a sustainable path higher. Higher long-dated bond yields make future profits less valuable—and many tech companies are valued on the basis of profits forecast for many years in the future. The Security Service of Ukraine said in a tweet that it was able to effectively target Russian convoys near Kyiv because of messages sent to an official Telegram bot account called "STOP Russian War." Despite Telegram's origins, its approach to users' security has privacy advocates worried.
from tr
