Stocks closed in the red Friday as investors weighed upbeat remarks from Russian President Vladimir Putin about diplomatic discussions with Ukraine against a weaker-than-expected print on U.S. consumer sentiment. 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. "There are several million Russians who can lift their head up from propaganda and try to look for other sources, and I'd say that most look for it on Telegram," he said. He adds: "Telegram has become my primary news source." The War on Fakes channel has repeatedly attempted to push conspiracies that footage from Ukraine is somehow being falsified. One post on the channel from February 24 claimed without evidence that a widely viewed photo of a Ukrainian woman injured in an airstrike in the city of Chuhuiv was doctored and that the woman was seen in a different photo days later without injuries. The post, which has over 600,000 views, also baselessly claimed that the woman's blood was actually makeup or grape juice.
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