Meta market cap drops 9.9% to $514bn as Russia blocks social media giants

Global stock markets fell on Monday as technology stocks tumbled, reeling from Russia’s blockage of access to social media platforms and news sites in the country.

Amid its war with Ukraine, Russia completely blocked access to Facebook in retaliation for the platform placing restrictions on state-owned media.

Roskomnadzor, the Russian state communications regulator, later restricted access to Twitter.

Analysts said that stocks have continued to slide on fears of the economic damage that the rise in global commodity prices and economic boycotts will do, notably in Europe, a key market for many United States companies.

By 14:40 GMT on Monday, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 253 points, or 0.8 percent at 33,362 points. The S&P 500 was down 0.4 percent and the Nasdaq Composite was effectively flat from Friday’s close. All three had posted losses last week.

The S&P 500, Dow and Nasdaq added to earlier losses and fell more than 2% in the afternoon session

The shares of Meta, the parent company of Facebook, declined 5.48 percent by 6:39 pm Nigerian time on Monday to trade at $189.09 per share.

The company’s market capitalisation fell 9.9 percent from $571.97 on Friday to $514.83 billion — down from N1 trillion in June 2021.

Snapchat’s stock fell by 5.71 percent and Alphabet Inc is down by 3.02 percent.

But Twitter’s stock stood out with a 0.1 percent gain to trade at $33.09 per share.

Boeing’s stock fell 0.8 percent after it said it would suspend the purchase of titanium and titanium products from a joint venture with Russia, a venture on which it relies for lightweight components for the aircraft, such as the 787 Dreamliner.

Boeing was joined over the weekend by Netflix, American Express, and accounting giants KPMG and PwC pulling their products and services from Russia.

Oil prices also hit their highest level since 2008 at over $130 a barrel on Monday morning and pulled back to trade at around $120 a barrel.

The development comes amid fears the United States and its European allies are weighing whether to ban imports of Russian crude.

On Sunday, Anthony Blinken, US secretary of state, said it was actively talking with European allies on the possibility.