Alibaba Slips As Execs Summoned, China Growth Pace Slows — Nio, EV Peers Buck Trend

Shares of major U.S.-listed Chinese companies traded mixed in Hong Kong on Friday, with tech heavyweights like Alibaba Group Holdings BABA, Baidu Inc BIDU, JD.com Inc JD, and Tencent Holdings TCEHY being a major drag.

Bucking the weakness, electric vehicle stocks gained, with Xpeng Inc XPEV, Nio Inc NIO, and Li Auto Inc LI trading as much as 2%.

Shares of these Chinese companies ended mixed on U.S. bourses on Thursday.

Global Markets Recap: The benchmark Hang Seng Index traded 0.69% lower after paring early losses.

In the U.S., the Dow Jones Industrial Average ended 0.46% lower on Thursday as investors assessed the scope of expected Fed rate hikes and disappointing big bank earnings.

On Friday, Shanghai's SSE Composite Index gained 0.16%, Japan's Nikkei 225 was up 0.50%, while Singapore's SGX Nifty traded mutedly.

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Macro Factors: Struggling to shake off the impact of COVID-19 curbs, the Chinese economy grew by a paltry 0.4% — below market expectations — in the second quarter from a year earlier.

However, retail sales recovered in June and rose 3.1% from a prior slump, beating analysts' expectations for no growth from the preceding year. The unemployment rate across China’s 31 largest cities fell from pre-pandemic highs to 5.8% in June.

China’s central bank refrained from lowering a key policy rate, holding its one-year medium-term lending facility loans unchanged.

Property and bank stocks also declined as the mainland-China housing market bottomed amid COVID woes.

Company In News: Alibaba executives were summoned by authorities investigating the theft of police data. Cybersecurity companies said Alibaba’s cloud platform that hosted Shanghai’s police database used outdated systems that didn’t offer the ability to set a password, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Internet giant Tencent has reportedly shut down one of its two non fungible tokens (NFT) platforms following government restrictions, according to a local daily.

Painting hopes for peers like Nio, Xpeng, and Li Auto, Warren Buffett-backed automotive giant BYD Co Ltd BYDDF said it expects to achieve a net profit attributable to shareholders of RMB 2.8 billion - 3.6 billion ($533 million) in the first half, up almost 138.59% - 206.76% from a year earlier.

Photo by Maurice NORBERT on Shutterstock