Alibaba, Tencent And Nio Rivals Xpeng, Li Auto Fall In Hong Kong As Evergrande, Kaisa Default On Payments

Shares of Alibaba Group Holding Limited BABA, Baidu Inc. BIDU, Tencent Holdings Inc. TCEHY, Xpeng Inc. XPEV and Li Auto Inc. LI fell in Hong Kong on Friday, while JD.Com Inc. JD traded higher.

What’s Moving: Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba’s shares traded 0.9% lower at HKD 122.30 in Hong Kong, while peer JD.Com’s shares have risen 0.8% to HKD 313.40.

See Also: How To Buy Alibaba (BABA) Stock

Technology company Baidu’s shares have lost 1.2% to HKD 145.40, while tech conglomerate Tencent’s shares are down 0.3% to HKD 471.40.

Electric vehicle maker Xpeng’s shares have fallen 3.6% to HKD 182.00 and peer Li Auto’s shares traded 1.0% lower at HKD 123.20.

Hong Kong’s benchmark Hang Seng Index opened lower on Friday and was down 0.4% at the time of writing. The index closed almost 1.1% higher on Thursday.

Why Is It Moving? The Hang Seng Index fell after three straight days of gains as Chinese property developers China Evergrande Group EGRNY and Kaisa Group Holdings Ltd. officially defaulted on their dollar debt.

Fitch Ratings has downgraded Evergrande and Kaisa to “restricted default” after the two companies missed key deadlines and failed to make payments on dollar bonds this week.

The failures could trigger a cross-default in debt owed by the two developers. Evergrande has $19.2 billion of dollar bonds outstanding while Kaisa owes $11.6 billion, according to a report by Bloomberg.

In addition, the Chinese yuan fell after the People’s Bank of China (PBOC) raised the reserve requirement ratio on foreign currencies for a second time this year, Reuters reported.

The move is seen as an attempt by the central bank to slow the rapid appreciation of the yuan, which has risen more than 2% against the dollar since late July.

The offshore yuan traded at 6.3720 per dollar, its weakest level this month.

Shares of Chinese companies closed mostly lower in U.S. trading on Thursday after the major averages in the U.S. ended mostly lower following three straight days of gains. Investors turned cautious as they looked ahead to the release of key U.S. inflation data on Friday.

Alibaba’s shares closed 0.9% lower, while Nio’s shares ended lower by almost 2.9%.

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