Why Alibaba, Other Tech Peers Are Slumping In Hong Kong Today

Shares of U.S.-listed Chinese tech giants Alibaba Group Holding Ltd BABA, Baidu Inc BIDU, JD.Com JD, and Tencent Holdings TCEHY slid deep into the red in Hong Kong on Friday at press time. 

These Chinese tech giants also had a subdued ending in U.S. markets as well on Thursday.

The Macro Factors: The benchmark Hang Seng Index started on a negative note and was down 3.27% amid fears of Beijing's "zero-COVID" policies disrupting the economy and the administration's lack of concrete measures to support the sector.

This came after top Chinese leaders warned against questioning Xi Jinping's strategy to stamp out the coronavirus, despite the sharp contraction in the country's economy as businesses went to a grinding halt.

In a meeting led by Xi, the politburo's supreme standing committee pledged to "fight against any speech that distorts, questions or rejects our country's COVID-control policy," Bloomberg reported.

Friday's slide was also led by an overnight drop on Wall Street that sent the Dow Jones Industrial Average to its worst day since 2020, while the Nasdaq Golden Dragon China Index fell 7.7%. 

Elsewhere, Australia's ASX 200 shed 2.24%, and the SGXNifty in Singapore was down 2.14%, while the Shanghai Composite slid 1.58%. 

Company In News: To boost its slowing sales growth, Alibaba has turned to 930 million consumers in third and fourth-tier cities. For years, it had focused on shoppers in wealthy first and second-tier cities like Shanghai and Beijing through its flagship Taobao and upmarket Tianmao platforms. But due to the rising competition and regulatory pressures, there has been a serious dip in sales on these platforms. 

Baidu announced a new round of leadership changes on Thursday, according to Pandaily. The company said Shen Dou, an executive vice president, will take charge of Baidu's AI Cloud Group, which was previously headed by Haifeng Wang – the company's CTO.