By Jack Denton
Alibaba and other Chinese stocks slipped lower on Wednesday amid further signs of a rocky recovery in the world's second-largest economy, where pressures on the property sector continue to weigh on markets.
Shares in Alibaba dropped 1.3% in U.S. premarket trading, with online retail peers JD.com and PDD seeing their stocks drop 1% and 1.2%, respectively. The price action was indicative of weakness in Asian trading on Wednesday, with Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index retreating 1.4%. Futures tracking the S&P 500, by comparison, rose 0.3%.
Amid a relatively quiet -- and holiday-shortened -- week for global markets, Chinese stocks showed that the path of least resistance continues to be downward, with shares slipping lower amid mixed economic data out of China.
Chinese industrial profits jumped 10.2% annually in the January through February period -- an encouraging trend, even if that double-digit growth figure was in part the result of a comparatively weak period in early 2023.
However, "property-related figures remain sluggish, with sales down 29.3% year over year and investment down 9% y/y in the two-month period, " wrote Mark Haefele, chief investment officer at UBS Global Wealth Management, in a note Wednesday.
"The recovery remains subpar," Haefele noted. "The latest data added to China's uneven picture of recovery, with industrials fairing generally better than the consumption and demand segments due to the improving tech upcycle and policy support on manufacturing and infrastructure."
Write to Jack Denton at jack.denton@barrons.com
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(END) Dow Jones Newswires
March 27, 2024 06:00 ET (10:00 GMT)
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