Asian stocks dip, Alibaba leads China tech rout
Investing.com-- Most Asian stocks fell on Friday, cooling after marking some strong gains earlier this week, while Chinese technology stocks clocked steep losses after Alibaba flagged the impact of recent U.S. chip export curbs.
Regional markets took a weak lead-in from Wall Street, as the tail end of a fairly sobering earnings season brought little cheer. Weaker-than-expected jobless claims data also pointed to more cooling in the U.S. economy.
An overnight spike in U.S. Treasury yields also pressured stock markets.
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index was by far the worst performer on Friday, down 1.6% on heavy losses in locally-listed Chinese tech stocks.
Alibaba Group (HK:9988) (NYSE:BABA) slid 10% to a one-year low and was the biggest decliner on the index, after the e-commerce giant scrapped the planned spin-off and listing of its cloud unit.
The firm cited uncertainties over the supply of chips needed for artificial intelligence development, after the U.S. recently tightened its chip export ban against China to cover AI-related materials.
Alibaba’s move highlighted a similar issue for other Chinese firms, as they now face the challenge of developing AI without the cutting-edge technology provided by U.S. firms, specifically Nvidia (NASDAQ:NVDA).
Baidu Inc (HK:9888) (NASDAQ:BIDU) and Tencent Holdings Ltd (HK:0700), which together with Alibaba make up the BAT (LON:BATS) trio, sank 5.4% and 1.7%, respectively. Tencent had also warned of similar difficulties as Alibaba earlier this week.
Losses in domestic tech stocks saw China’s Shanghai Shenzhen CSI 300 and Shanghai Composite indexes fall 0.5% and 0.3%, respectively.
High-level talks between U.S. and Chinese leaders yielded little support for markets. While the countries
Read more on investing.com
