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. In 2014, Pavel Durov fled the country after allies of the Kremlin took control of the social networking site most know just as VK. Russia's intelligence agency had asked Durov to turn over the data of anti-Kremlin protesters. Durov refused to do so. 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. But Kliuchnikov, the Ukranian now in France, said he will use Signal or WhatsApp for sensitive conversations, but questions around privacy on Telegram do not give him pause when it comes to sharing information about the war. For example, WhatsApp restricted the number of times a user could forward something, and developed automated systems that detect and flag objectionable content.
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