Why Is China Strangling Its Greatest Tech Stocks?
Many Chinese tech stocks recently fell after a Bloomberg report claimed the government might launch a joint venture with the country's top tech companies to oversee all the personal data they gather.
E-commerce and fintech companies would reportedly be forced to join that platform, which raises red flags for Alibaba (NYSE: BABA) and its fintech affiliate Ant Group. China's regulators already suspended Ant's IPO and launched an antitrust probe into Alibaba last year; the proposed joint venture could further tighten those screws.
But that's not all. China's antitrust regulators also recently fined a dozen companies, including Tencent (OTC: TCEHY) and Baidu (NASDAQ: BIDU), over their unapproved investments and acquisitions. The fines were nominal, but they indicated the tech giants could struggle to expand their ecosystems through aggressive acquisitions in the future.
Source Fool.com
