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Alibaba owns around a third of Ant Group, which was also founded by Jack Ma.
Dreamstime
U.S.-listed Chinese tech stocks fell early Monday after strong gains Friday. Investors are weighing up more disappointing economic data against hopes that Beijing’s regulatory crackdown on tech is coming to an end.
American depositary receipts of
Alibaba Group
(ticker: BABA) shares were down 1.1% in premarket trading, after rising 8% on Friday, when its affiliate Ant Group was fined almost $1 billion by Chinese regulators.
JD.com
(JD) ADRs were down 1.3% in the premarket after rising almost 5% on Friday.
Investors are hoping the Ant fine marks the end of years of regulatory pressure on the technology sector. Ant said after the fine that it would buy back up to $6 billion in stock, offering investors a chance to cash out more than two years after its plans to go public were scuttled by Beijing.
However, optimism over regulatory developments risks are being outweighed by broader concerns about the 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.
Meanwhile, 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.
Investors in Hong Kong appeared to be more optimistic as locally-listed 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 adam.clark@barrons.com
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