Hong Kong stocks slumped, dragged down by Alibaba Group’s worst sell-off in more than a year, after China’s biggest e-commerce group scrapped a plan to spin off its cloud-computing business amid heightened tech war and cybersecurity concerns.
The Hang Seng Index dropped 1.4 per cent to 17,576.37 at 9.40am local time, trimming the gain in the week to 2.2 per cent. The Tech Index lost 1.2 per cent, while the Shanghai Composite Index declined 0.2 per cent.
Alibaba tumbled 7.8 per cent to HK$75, the most since a 11 per cent drop in October last year. The drop erased US$16 billion from its market value, in addition to US$20 billion overnight when its American depositary shares crashed 9.1 per cent in New York trading.
Other tech leaders also retreated. Alibaba Health Information slid 3.2 per ent to HK$37.30, Baidu slid 2.6 per cent to HK$106 and Tencent declined 0.4 per cent to HK$323.60.
The Taobao and Tmall operator and the owner of this newspaper, announced that it would terminate the proposed spinoff of AliCloud due to uncertainties caused by new and tougher US chip export ban, limiting its ability to deliver higher returns to investors. Alibaba also put off a plan to list online grocer Freshippo, according to statements in its quarterly results.
The Biden administration last month tightened regulations aimed at hobbling China’s artificial intelligence development by cutting off the country’s access to less-advanced chip-making equipment from ASML and data-centre chips from Nvidia.
Two stocks debuted on Friday. WuXi XDC Cayman jumped 30 per cent to HK$26.95 in Hong Kong, while Grand Kangxi Communication Technology surged 150 per cent to 25.88 yuan in Shanghai.
Asian stocks were mixed. Japan’s Nikkei 225 added 0.1 per cent, while Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 declined 0.2 per cent and South Korea’s Kospi lost 0.5 per cent.
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