What happened
Shares of Alibaba (BABA 2.33%), Bilibili (BILI 7.61%) and Pinduoduo (PDD 9.38%) were all sliding this afternoon after the Chinese government imposed fresh lockdowns in some parts of the country, and fined Alibaba and other Chinese tech companies for not complying with some anti-monopoly regulations.
As a result, the Chinese tech stock sector was sliding today, sending Alibaba down 8.5%, Bilibili falling 9.4%, and Pinduoduo tumbling 10.1% as of 2:26 p.m. ET.
So what
China's State Administration for Market Regulation said yesterday that there were 28 violations of its anti-monopoly rules, including five involving Alibaba. The Chinese e-commerce giant was slapped with a fine of about $372,000.
Image source: Getty Images.
The size of that fine isn't a large amount for Alibaba, but the fact that the Chinese government continues to put pressure on technology companies has been an ongoing concern for investors for a while now. Over the past couple of years, the Chinese government has tamped down some growth of tech companies as it tries to keep them from getting too big.
And the Chinese government's latest move over the weekend is making investors fearful that the government is once again making moves that will hurt Chinese tech stock growth. As a result, the share prices of many tech stocks -- including Alibaba, Bilibili, and Pinduoduo -- were falling today.
Making matters worse for Chinese stocks was the fact that new COVID-19 lockdowns in Macau were reported over the weekend. China has a strict zero-COVID policy and Macau, a city known for its casinos, is entering a week-long lockdown because of rising coronavirus cases.
Investors worry that ongoing lockdowns will continue to hurt the Chinese economy, and thus put pressure on the top and bottom lines of Alibaba, Bilibili, and Pinduoduo. And with the government seemingly committed to implementing lockdowns wherever new COVID-19 cases pop up, investors don't have much hope that there will be any pullback on restrictions anytime soon.
Now what
Alibaba, Bilibili, and Pinduoduo investors have had to stomach significant losses over the past year, with the stocks falling 46%, 77%, and 50%, respectively.
In addition to the concerns mentioned already, investors have also been worried that some Chinese companies could be delisted from U.S. stock exchanges. The U.S. government has been putting pressure on Chinese companies to comply with certain auditing regulations and has threatened to kick some of them off of public exchanges if they don't.
Those fears are constantly in the back of Chinese tech stock investors' minds, and with new lockdowns in China and anti-monopoly fines being handed out, it appears that Alibaba, Bilibili, and Pinduoduo investors have even more to be concerned about right now.
