Shuli Ren, Columnist

Why China’s Tech Darlings Are Losing Their Fangs

Tencent and Alibaba have started underperforming the likes of Apple and Amazon, and the gap may be here to stay.

August 31, 2018 at 2:36 AM UTC

Shuli Ren is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering Asian markets. A former investment banker, she was a markets reporter for Barron’s. She is a CFA charterholder.

Board games.
Photographer: Qilai Shen/Bloomberg

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Not all tech stars are equal. While U.S. giants from Apple Inc. to Amazon.com Inc. march to or through the $1 trillion valuation mark, China’s darlings are getting dumped.

The groups started to diverge two months ago, and the big American tech stocks have outperformed their Chinese counterparts by 19 percentage points since then. With more than $18 billion of bets now standing against Alibaba Group Holding Ltd., the e-commerce leader is the world’s most shorted stock. Tencent Holdings Ltd. shares dropped as much as 5 percent in early Hong Kong trading Thursday after reports that China plans further curbs on gaming.