Tencent’s Rout This Year Has Wiped Out Over $175 Billion in Market Value -- WSJ

Also see Tencent, the Chinese Internet Giant, Stumbles. Beijing Gets the Blame (NYT)

"Tencent, which owns China’s highly popular social-messaging app WeChat, a day earlier reported a 2% decline in second-quarter income to 17.9 billion yuan ($2.6 billion). Its revenue rose 30% to 73.7 billion yuan, but that also missed most analysts’ forecasts. The company said its games business has been hindered by a regulatory restructuring of two Chinese government agencies that oversee videogame content, leading to delays in game approvals.

The shares, which closed Thursday at 325.80 Hong Kong dollars ($41.51), are now down by nearly a third from their record high in January, when Tencent’s market capitalization climbed to $572 billion and surpassed that of U.S. social-media giant Facebook Inc.

The selloff has sparked fears of whether there will be broader contagion for tech stocks around the world. U.S.-listed Chinese tech giants such as Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. and Baidu Inc. also fell on Wednesday, pushing deeper into negative territory for the year."

Tencent’s Rout This Year Has Wiped Out Over $175 Billion in Market Value -- WSJ