E-commerce giant Alibaba led a spike in Chinese technology shares on Friday on the back of upbeat first-quarter earnings estimates.
Alibaba’s Hong Kong-listed shares rose as much as 12%, shrugging off months of widespread Covid-19 lockdowns and supply chain disruptions in the world’s second-biggest economy. The stock was up 11.8% at HK$90.70 at 2pm Hong Kong time.
The surge followed a 14.8% surge in Alibaba’s New York-listed American depositary receipts, which closed at $94.48 on Thursday.
The surge came despite Alibaba declining to provide a forecast for the current fiscal year because Covid-19 risks clouded its outlook, after reporting its slowest quarterly revenue growth since going public in 2014.
The markets, however, focused on Alibaba’s quarterly revenue and earnings in a sharply weakening economy.
Analysts said the results were more resilient than expected.
“As Alibaba’s large scale reflects the overall macro economy, we believe it is the key beneficiary of a potential favourable policy rollout in terms of lockdown measures and consumption stimulus,” Daiwa Capital analysts said in a note.
Alibaba helped Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Tech index rise nearly 4% at 2pm on Friday, with all 30 of the companies listed on the benchmark making gains.
Chinese search engine group Baidu’s shares soared 15.5% after the company reported higher sales. Shares in JD.com rose 5.8% after the e-commerce company reported an 18% rise in revenues.
- George Russell, with Reuters
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