U.S.-listed Chinese tech stocks wavered Monday as investors weighed more disappointing economic data out of Beijing against hopes that the government’s tech crackdown is coming to an end.
The falter followed a strong showing Friday after Chinese regulators fined fintech Ant Group almost $1 billion by Chinese regulators. The penalty signals that China’s three-year regulatory tech crackdown could be almost over.
In midday trading, American depositary receipts of
Alibaba Group
(ticker: BABA) were up 0.7%, turning around initial losses. The stock rose 8% Friday; Alibaba owns a third of Ant Group.
JD.com
(JD) was up 0.1% after its almost 5% Friday.
PDD Holdings
(PDD), the parent company of shopping app Pinduoduo, was up 1%; it was up 1.9% Friday..
After being fined, Ant said it would buy back up to $6 billion in stock, offering investors a chance to cash out more than two years after Beijing scuttled its plans to go public.
The fine probably marks the end of China’s regulatory tech overhaul, but will provide only temporary market support, said Richard Tang, an analyst at Swiss private bank Julius Baer.
“We retain our view that the Chinese internet sector has become more cyclical in nature and is dependent on the economic outlook […] positive momentum may only be sustained if there is a positive development on the policy front,” Tang wrote in a research note on Monday.
Investors are waiting for government stimulus plans for the struggling Chinese economy. The risk of the country falling into deflation was underlined Monday by data showing China’s consumer-price index was flat in June from a year earlier. That was down from a 0.2% increase in May.
Also, China’s factory-gate prices fell at their fastest pace in more than seven years last month. The producer-price index fell 5.4% from a year earlier in June, compared with a 4.6% decline in May, the National Bureau of Statistics said.
In Hong Kong, shares of Alibaba rose 3.2% and
JD.com
rose 1.7%, although investors were also catching up with Friday’s news of the Ant Group fine.
Write to Adam Clark at [email protected]
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