Russia Cuts Gas to Finland

Joining the list of countries – like Poland and Bulgaria – affected by retaliatory sanctions from Russia is Finland. The country’s supply of Russian natural gas has been cut off after Helsinki officially applied to join NATO. Gasum, Finland’s state-owned gas distributor, announced that while imports had halted, they were “prepared for it”. The disruption in supply, however, will foreseeably affect Finland less than most other EU countries, given that natural gas only accounts for 5% of the country’s energy consumption.

Biggest Pandemic Stocks Back to Start

Shares of many companies that exploded during prolonged lockdowns have dropped back to pre-pandemic levels. Zoom, which saw its price rise over 800% to an all-time high of US$559 during the pandemic, is now down 41% YTD and hovering around the $100 mark. Then there’s Peleton, whose shares crashed 53% almost overnight in November 2021 on the back of poor fiscal projections for 2022. Teledoc, which hit a high of $292 in early 2021, is now trading at $30, levels which were last seen in 2018.

BABA Surges on Sales Beat

After over a year of tumbling on the back of controversy surrounding its founder Jack Ma, Chinese regulatory worries, and a broad tech selloff, shares of Alibaba surged over 14% after a better-than-expected earnings report. However, China’s zero-Covid policy continues to put a damper on Chinese companies, with Alibaba revealing that they would not give guidance due to supply chain uncertainty caused by China’s lockdowns. Said CEO Daniel Zhang told a post-earnings call, “to give you a sense of the scope of impact – based on consumer address, cities with new COVID cases in April represented more than half of or China Retail Marketplaces GMV”.