Finance

S&P 500 futures were higher even after a losing week on Wall Street as investors ditched equities amid concerns over the new omicron Covid variant and the Federal Reserve’s move to tighten policy.
Nasdaq stock futures were the underperformer on Sunday following a big drop in bitcoin over the weekend and as investors continued to rethink owning tech stocks with high valuations.

Futures contracts tied to the Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 163 points, or 0.5%. S&P 500 futures were 0.35% higher. Nasdaq 100 futures hovered around the flatline.
The Dow and S&P 500 fell 0.17% and 0.84%, respectively, on Friday. The Nasdaq Composite was the underperformer, sliding 1.92%.
Tesla was the biggest drag on the tech-heavy Nasdaq Friday, with shares of the electric vehicle company sliding more than 6%.
Cathie Wood’s flagship Ark Innovation Fund slid more than 5%, and all of the fund’s holdings are now in a bear market apart from two stocks. Teladoc Health, Zoom Video, Roku, Palantir and Twilio are some of the names that have registered steep losses.
The heavy selling in technology stocks extended to the crypto universe where prices also dropped. Bitcoin traded around $57,000 on Friday morning, but by Saturday had plunged to around $43,000. By Sunday the world’s largest cryptocurrency had clawed back some of its losses, but it still traded below the key $50,000 level.

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Slower-than-expected job growth also contributed to Friday’s broad market selling. Nonfarm payrolls increased by 210,000 last month, the Labor Department said Friday, which was below the 573,000 number economists surveyed by Dow Jones were expecting.
“A softer payrolls print pulled the rug beneath risk sentiment,” TD Securities wrote Friday in a note to clients. As investors fled to safety the yield on the 10-year Treasury dipped to 1.335%, the lowest since Sept. 21.
The unemployment rate was a better-than-expected 4.2%, down from 4.6% in October. Economists had forecast a reading of 4.5%, according to Dow Jones.
“The job growth number is disappointing, no doubt, especially considering the survey period fell before we even know the name of the newest Covid-19 variant,” said Jeffrey Buchbinder, equity strategist at LPL Financial. “While Omicron may curb hiring a bit over the next month or two, we remain confident in our expectation for strong job gains and above-average growth in the U.S. economy in 2022,” he added.
Friday’s selling wrapped up a volatile week for the major averages as investors evaluated new information about the omicron variant.

All three major averages finished the week in the red, with the Dow registering a fourth straight negative week for the first time since September 2020. The S&P and Nasdaq Composite were both down for a second consecutive week.
Small cap names were hit especially hard, with the Russell 2000 falling 3.86% for the week.
“Despite our forecast for a flat year for the S&P 500…we are still bullish on pockets of the market, including small caps,” Bank of America said Friday in a note to clients. “Small caps are more domestic, more exposed to the services spending recovery, bigger beneficiaries of capex/reshoring and are inexpensive vs. large caps,” the firm added.
However, Bank of America said the potential upside for small caps hinges on Covid cases staying under control.
The omicron variant has now been discovered in at least 15 U.S. states, CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky told ABC News on Sunday.
“We know we have several dozen cases and we’re following them closely. And we are every day hearing about more and more probable cases so that number is likely to rise,” she said on “This Week.”

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AS THE EFFECTS of the Spanish flu waned in 1919, Seattle’s workers agitated. Many were fed up with long hours and poor pay, especially at a time of high inflation. Shipyard workers went on strike, leading others to down their tools in solidarity. Newspapers were filled with stories of machinists, firefighters and painters quitting. Events in Seattle sparked labour unrest across the rest of the country and much of the rich world. Bosses worried that the lower classes had become work-shy anti-capitalists. Seattle once again seems like ground zero for a big shift in working relations. In October the local carpenters’ union finished a weeks-long strike over pay and conditions. Hotels and shops remain understaffed. Local tech firms, worried about losing staff, have raised average salaries by nearly 5% since 2020. Microsoft, one of them, claimed earlier this year that 46% of the global workforce was planning to make “a major pivot or career transition”. Seattle seems like an example of what Anthony Klotz of Texas a&m University, has called the “great resignation”. That memorable term has quickly become a corporate buzzword, spouted on companies’ earnings calls and at cocktail receptions. It has also made waves online. An “anti-work” message board on Reddit, a social-media site, is filled with screeds against the demands of greedy bosses. The forum now generates more user comments a day than the “WallStreetBets” subreddit, which moved stockmarkets earlier this year. The term is elastic, but in essence it makes the proposition that the pandemic has provoked a cultural shift in which workers reassess their life priorities. People in low-status jobs will no longer put up with bad pay or poor conditions, while white-collar types scoff at the idea of working long hours. Some people have become lazier or more entitled; others want to try something new; others desire money less because they have realised the joys of a simpler life. This is, supposedly, leading to a tsunami of resignations and dropouts. There is one catch, however: the theory has little hard evidence to support it. The great-resignation thesis seems strongest in America and Britain. In September a record 4.4m Americans quit their jobs (see chart 1). In the third quarter of the year nearly 400,000 Britons moved from one job to another after handing in their notice, also the highest-ever level. There is circumstantial evidence that employers are responding to the threat of further departures, too. According to a tracker compiled by Goldman Sachs, a bank, wage growth in both countries is unusually high (see chart 2). A weak jobs report for America, released on December 3rd, seems to confirm how hard it has become to find staff even as vacancies remain near record highs. The world’s largest economy added just 210,000 jobs in November, below economists’ expectations of 550,000. In other parts of the rich world, however, a great resignation is harder to spot. It is certainly true that millions have dropped out of work. Our best guess is that the labour force in the rich world is 3% smaller than it would have been without covid-19, a deficit of 20m people. Yet outside of America and Britain there is little sign that this reflects more people quitting. In October 96,000 Canadians who had left their job within the past year did so because they were “dissatisfied”, down from 132,000 on the eve of the pandemic. In Japan the number of unemployed people who had quit their previous job is near an all-time low. Data from New Zealand on labour-market “flows” look entirely unremarkable. There are hints of a small rise in resignations in Italy, but across the eu as a whole the flow of people from work into leisure is lower than before the pandemic. And in many places there is little sign that workers are getting bolshier, which you might think could presage a rise in resignations. The number of industrial disputes in Australia continues to trend downwards. Collective labour disputes are “facing extinction”, according to a recent issue of Japan Labour Issues, a journal. If the pandemic has changed workers’ outlook on the world, they are hiding it pretty well. Other factors, then, probably help explain the decline in the labour force. Many people still say they are fearful of catching covid-19 and may therefore be avoiding public spaces, for instance. Immigrants have returned to their home countries.Even if a wave of resignations is largely an Anglo-American phenomenon, is there any evidence that the people who are quitting are doing so because they have become work-shy? Reddit posts notwithstanding, this does not seem to be the case. In Britain a tenth of workers say they would like a job with fewer hours and less pay—but that is in line with the long-run average. A recent study by Gallup, in America, suggests that “employee engagement”, a rough proxy for job satisfaction, is close to its all-time high: hard to square with the notion that lots more people are desperate for a way out. That suggests two more prosaic explanations for soaring quits. One relates to vacancies. When there are lots of open positions, people feel more confident about handing in their notice, even if they rather like their job. They may also be poached. Vacancies are sky-high right now, partly because the pandemic has led to surging demand in new sectors (say, warehouses for online retail). Analysis of America by Jason Furman of Harvard University and of Britain by Pawel Adrjan of Indeed, a job-search site, suggests that job quits are where you would expect them to be given the number of vacancies. Messrs Furman and Adrjan’s analysis may nonetheless underestimate how unremarkable the surge in quits truly is. In both countries resignations sank during the worst of the pandemic in mid-2020. Many people who would like to have left a position last year may only now have plucked up the courage to do so. Account for these “pent-up” resignations, and the recent pickup looks even less unusual. Could a truly “great resignation” ever emerge? It would probably require more radical cultural changes. Households would need to decide, en masse, that their future consumption needs, and thus their necessary income, were substantially lower. That would mean no more foreign holidays, less dining out and fewer household appliances. It would mean fewer Christmas presents. Anyone who visited a Black Friday sale this year, in Seattle or elsewhere, would be quickly disabused of the notion that such a shift was on the cards. More

The governors of Florida, Iowa, Kansas and Tennessee signed laws in recent weeks that allow workers to collect unemployment benefits if fired for refusing to comply with a Covid-19 vaccine mandate.
Lawmakers in other Republican-led statehouses may do the same next year.
The Biden administration’s national vaccine mandate for large employers is being challenged in court.

Xavier Lorenzo | Moment | Getty Images

Some states are making it easier for Americans to collect unemployment benefits if they’re fired for being unvaccinated against Covid-19.
The governors of Florida, Iowa, Kansas and Tennessee signed laws in recent weeks that change eligibility rules for jobless benefits. Workers in these states who lose a job for refusing to comply with a workplace Covid-19 vaccine mandate now qualify for benefits.  

That runs counter to typical state rules, which generally disallow aid if workers are fired for failing to adhere to certain workplace policies, whether related to vaccine requirements or mandatory drug tests, for example, according to labor experts.

Three of the states (Florida, Iowa and Tennessee) are helmed by Republican governors. Kansas’ governor is a Democrat.
Republican lawmakers in other statehouses, including Arkansas, New York and Wisconsin, have introduced similar bills since September, according to a National Conference of State Legislatures database.
“I wouldn’t be surprised if other ones do it, especially when the legislatures get back in session [next year],” according to Andrew Stettner, a senior fellow at The Century Foundation, a progressive think tank.

The move comes as many U.S. employers are weighing a workplace vaccine mandate and as fears over the omicron virus variant grow.

About 57% of large businesses require or plan to require Covid-19 vaccinations for employees, according to a survey published Tuesday by Willis Towers Watson, a consulting firm. However, more than half of those will only move forward if a Biden administration vaccine rule takes effect.
The Biden administration rule requires businesses with at least 100 employees to ensure staff are vaccinated or submit a negative Covid test on a weekly basis. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration suspended enforcement and implementation of the measure after a federal appeals court ordered a pause pending a review.

The rule was meant to take effect Jan. 4. President Joe Biden asked businesses on Thursday to voluntarily proceed with the requirements.
“Simply put, delaying the standard would likely cost many lives per day, in addition to large numbers of hospitalizations, other serious health effects and tremendous expenses,” the Justice Department said in a court filing. “That is a confluence of harms of the highest order.”
Some Republican officials seeking to overturn the policy argue it infringes on personal liberties.

“I believe the vaccine is the best defense against Covid-19 and we’ve provided Iowans with the information they need to determine what’s best for themselves and their families, but no Iowan should be forced to lose their job or livelihood over the Covid-19 vaccine,” Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds said Oct. 29 after signing the legislation amending unemployment rules.
Aside from loosening rules to collect benefits, the new state laws also generally make it easier for employees to qualify for certain exemptions from workplace vaccine mandates.
More from Personal Finance:Long-term unemployment fell again but at slowest pace since AprilHow to get the free at-home Covid tests promised by White HouseMore than $87 billion in federal benefits siphoned from unemployment system
States generally require businesses to allow exemptions from certain workplace rules for medical or religious reasons.
Workers who qualify for an exemption have legal protection from being fired for noncompliance with a vaccine mandate.
Those who don’t qualify for an exemption and are fired are now eligible for income support via unemployment benefits.

The policy seems to run contrary to states’ actions over the summer relative to unemployment benefits, according to Alexa Tapia, the unemployment insurance campaign coordinator for the National Employment Law Project.
Florida, Iowa and Tennessee were among 26 states that moved to cut off federal unemployment benefits a few months ahead of their official Labor Day expiration. They argued the benefits were contributing to a labor shortage by offering an incentive for recipients not to look for work. (Data in subsequent months showed that largely wasn’t the case.)
The new unemployment laws are sending the opposite message, by offering a financial incentive to people who lose their jobs due to a vaccine requirement, Tapia said.

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It’s been a dismal week for Cathie Wood’s flagship fund, Ark Innovation, that’s left nearly all of her holdings in bear market.
Wood’s main exchange-traded fund, which trades under ticker ARKK, fell 12.6% this week, for its worst week since February. Ark Innovation dropped 5.5% on Friday.

Arrows pointing outwards

The painful losses have left all but 2 of Wood’s constituents more than 20% off their recent high, meaning they are in a bear market.
Just Trimble and Tesla are less than 20% from their high, but the pair are both more than 10% from their 52-week records. Berkeley Lights, Proto Labs and Skillz are all more than 80% below their 52-week highs.

Wood spoke to CNBC this week and kept her conviction in Ark’s strategies, which focus on “disruptive innovation” in five digital plaforms: DNA sequencing, robotics, energy storage, artificial intelligence and blockchain technology.
Wood said her strategies are set to quadruple over the next five years, after their underperformance this year.
The portfolio manager expects the next few years to bring the “most spectacular period for innovation that we have ever seen,” said Wood.

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A logo of ride-hailing giant Didi Chuxing displayed on a building in Hangzhou in China’s eastern Zhejiang province.
STR | AFP | Getty Images

Check out the companies making headlines in midday trading.
DocuSign — The software stock plunged 42% after the company issued fourth-quarter sales guidance that was lower than what analysts expected. DocuSign gave a range of $557 million to $563 million, while analysts surveyed by Refinitiv expected $573.8 million.

Asana — Shares of the work management platform tumbled 26% despite beating expectations in its third-quarter results. Asana recorded an adjusted loss of 23 cents per share, which was narrower than the loss of 27 cents per share estimated by analysts, according to StreetAccount.
Ollie’s Bargain Outlet — Shares of the discount retail chain tanked 20% after Ollie’s missed estimates on the top and bottom lines for the third-quarter. Ollie’s said that supply chain issues hurt its results. Guidance for earnings and revenue was also weaker than expected.
DiDi Global — Shares of the Chinese ride-hailing giant fell 22% after company announced plans to delist from the New York Stock Exchange “immediately” amid Beijing’s crackdown on oversea listings. The company said it will pursue a listing in Hong Kong instead. Didi said its U.S. shares will be converted into “freely tradeable shares” on another international exchange.
Marvell Technology — The chipmaker’s shares jumped 17% after reporting quarterly results that beat estimates on the top and bottom lines. Marvell’s adjusted earnings came in at 43 cents per share on revenue of $1.21 billion of revenue, while analysts surveyed by Refinitiv were expecting 39 cents per share on revenue of $1.15 billion.
Nvidia — The chipmaker’s share price fell 4% as its planned $40 billion acquisition of chip designer Arm looks increasingly unlikely to go through. The deal was set to close in March but is facing a growing number of regulatory probes around the world.

Big Lots — The retailer saw its shares rise 5.3% after it reported a narrower-than-expected loss per share for the third quarter, at 14 cents, compared to analysts’ expectations of 16 cents. Big Lots also beat revenue expectations, bringing in $1.34 billion, versus estimates of $1.32 billion, according to StreetAccount.
Peloton — Shares of the at-home exercise company slid more than 2%, giving back an earlier gain that had been fueled by Deutsche Bank initiating coverage on the stock with a buy rating. The firm said that while it was a “tough ride in 2021,” ultimately “patience gets rewarded.” From a fundamental standpoint, Deutsche Bank believes Peloton can exhibit earnings power even in a fully reopened economic environment.
Zillow — The digital real estate company’s shares jumped 10% after it said it has sold or is in the process of selling about half of the dwellings it purchased for its home-flipping business, which it announced in early November it would shutter. Zillow also announced Thursday it plans to buy back up to $750 million in stock, about 5.5% of its current market cap, Bloomberg reported.
Tesla — Tesla shares fell more than 6% after CEO Elon Musk sold another $1 billion in Tesla shares, bringing his recent stock sales to $10.9 billion.
 — CNBC’s Jesse Pound, Pippa Stevens and Yun Li contributed reporting

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Cryptocurrency investors flocked to Miami Beach, Florida this week for Art Basel and nearly 200 other blockchain events in the city. 
Many acknowledged an unsustainable momentum behind NFTs as they pull in an estimated $2 billion per month. But investors are still bullish on the underlying technology. 
“Most people believe there’s some version of a bubble happening. But most of us who are in the space believe that whether it goes up or down it is a new thing that’s here to stay in some version of itself,” says Mike Shinoda.

Visitors look at an immersive art installation titled ‘Machine Hallucinations Space: Metaverse’ by Refik Anadol at the Digital Art Fair Asia in Hong Kong, Oct. 3, 2021.
Lam Yik | Bloomberg | Getty Images

MIAMI BEACH, Fla. –  Even if NFTs are a flash in the pan, cryptocurrency investors are betting that the underlying blockchain technology is here to stay. 
Crypto enthusiasts and venture capitalists flocked to Miami Beach, Florida this week during one of the world’s premier art events. For the first time, Art Basel Miami featured multiple NFT exhibits. But the city also hosted upwards of 200 other events, where the focus was more on the technology behind these digital collectibles.

Musicians, artists and celebrities are clamoring to launch NFTs, or non-fungible tokens, which are unique digital assets with ownership rights verified and stored on a blockchain. It’s a way to have ownership over content that’s been historically easy to replicate online.
The new asset class is raking in roughly $2 billion per month, up from $400 million in January, according to recent estimates from JPMorgan. Analysis by DappRadar shows NFT volume skyrocketing 38,000% year-over-year to $10.7 billion in the third quarter.
“Certainly there’s a lot of hype,” said Mike Shinoda, musician and co-founder of the band Linkin Park, who launched a new NFT mixtape this week. “Most people believe there’s some version of a bubble happening. But most of us who are in the space think that whether it goes up or down, it’s a new thing that’s here to stay in some version of itself.”

Gateway to crypto

Tristan Yver, head of strategy at Miami-based FTX U.S. said the hype benefits all corners of the crypto industry, even if parts are overvalued. Digital art can be a less intimidating way to introduce people to blockchain technology, according to Yver.
“We all have some basic understanding of art. We don’t all have a basic understanding of cryptocurrencies and blockchain — it’s the next step towards mass adoption,” Yver told CNBC. “NFTs are the first time a lot of people create a connection with cryptocurrency and blockchain.”

Blockchain technology used to be synonymous with bitcoin. But in the past few years, a variety of other blockchains have popped up that now support things like finance applications and video games.
Also known as distributed ledgers, the main draw for building on a blockchain is that they’re “decentralized.” There’s no central authority controlling these networks and no single point of failure. Advocates say it’s more transparent. Some tech investors see it as the next wave of the internet, dubbing it “Web 3.0”. 
Adam Judd, head of crypto at LionTree, said some specific NFT projects feel “somewhat bubbly.” But he still sees room for growth in the category and new use cases around identity, community incentives, start-up funding, entertainment and fashion. He pointed to the cultural phenomena of the Bored Ape Yacht Club, and Beeple’s record $69 million NFT sale driving “immense interest” in Web 3.0.
“One of the biggest opportunities right now is around user-friendly interfaces and experiences for the everyday person that make NFTs approachable, valuable, and economical,” Judd said. “Once the everyday person feels as comfortable purchasing an NFT as they do buying a coffee, the rest of Web3 will benefit.”
Packy McCormick, founder of Not Boring Capital, was also in Miami this week and said NFT events were the key catalyst for getting like-minded people in the same room. But conversations were drifting more towards decentralized autonomous organizations, or DAOs, a new type of governance system, and other new use cases for blockchains.
“Once people get into NFTs, they want to learn about everything else going on in blockchain — it’s impossible not to go down the rabbit hole,” McCormick said. “There’s going to be a ton of people coming in to speculate. But the important projects will have staying power and over time, quality will win.”
Watch: Art Basel 2021 begins as NFT, crypto enthusiasts descend upon Miami

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The number of long-term unemployed fell by 136,000 last month, according to the November jobs report published Friday by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
That’s a positive development, economists said, and continues a downward trend from early 2021. However, it’s the smallest decline since April.
The November jobs report gave conflicting signals, according to economists. Some of the confusion may be due to a seasonal adjustment.

Joe Raedle | Getty Images

The number of long-term unemployed fell by 136,000 in November, continuing a downward trend since early 2021 as the economy and labor market have rebounded.
However, the decrease was the smallest since April, when long-term unemployment fell by 35,000 people.

Long-term unemployment is a period of joblessness that lasts more than six months. It’s a financially precarious time for individuals, who generally by then no longer qualify for unemployment benefits. It may also cause lasting damage like lower future wages or more difficulty finding a job.

The number of long-term unemployed can drop for “good” reasons (people finding a job) or “bad” reasons (people getting discouraged by job prospects and discontinuing their search for work).
Evidence suggests November’s decline was for “good” reasons, a positive development, according to Nick Bunker, economic research director for North America at the Indeed Hiring Lab.
The labor force grew, as did the share of employed Americans relative to the overall population, according to the November jobs report, issued Friday. Both suggest more people found jobs last month, Bunker said.
The unemployment declines were also broad-based.

Confusing jobs report

Broadly, the November jobs report was a confusing one for economists.   
On one hand, there were many noteworthy developments.
The U.S. unemployment rate dropped to 4.2%, the lowest since February 2020, when it was 3.5%. (As noted earlier, the drop seems to be for “good” reasons.)
It was partly driven by a decline in total temporary layoffs, which fell below 1 million for the first time during the pandemic as employers recalled furloughed workers, according to Daniel Zhao, a senior economist at career site Glassdoor. Permanent layoffs also fell below 2 million for the first time since March 2020, he said.

On the other hand, overall job growth fell short of expectations. Payrolls increased by 210,000 in November, less than half what Wall Street expected. It was the slowest rate of growth all year, Zhao said.
The mismatch — a rosy unemployment outlook but disappointing job growth — may seem at odds.
But it’s a function of how officials tabulate the U.S. jobs report, according to economists. Unemployment and jobs figures come from two different surveys, of households and employers, respectively.  

“If I saw just the household survey this morning, I would’ve been ecstatic,” Bunker said. “If I were to have just [the employer survey], I’d be pretty bummed out.”
There’s usually some variation, but this degree of divergence is anomalous, Bunker said.

Why the divergence?

The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports payroll figures with a seasonal adjustment, which is meant to control for annual labor patterns like holiday hiring. Some economists think that adjustment, which has been complicated by Covid-related labor distortions, may be masking otherwise robust growth.
Without that adjustment, employers reported adding 778,000 jobs. That’s 568,000 more jobs than the seasonally adjusted figure would suggest.
“So we might be seeing a seasonal adjustment that is geared toward much more holiday season hiring than [is] currently occurring,” according to Michael Farren, an economist and senior research fellow at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University.
“Remember, [seasonal adjustments] were made for comparison to other similar years,” he added. “This means that the sky might not be falling after all.”
The federal government has also revised recent jobs figures significantly upward in subsequent months, which may occur in November, economists said.

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Didi’s share price sank 10% in U.S. premarket trading, having initially climbed as much as 14% earlier Friday morning.
Didi says it plans to delist from the New York Stock Exchange “immediately.”
The Chinese ride-hailing firm is set to pursue a listing in Hong Kong instead.

Budrul Chukrut | LightRocket | Getty Images

Didi shares reversed earlier gains to fall sharply in U.S. premarket trading Friday, after the company announced plans to delist from the New York Stock Exchange and pursue a listing in Hong Kong instead.
Shares of the Chinese ride-hailing giant have been hammered by regulatory woes in its home country ever since its initial public offering in the U.S. earlier this year. The stock has now roughly halved from its initial listing price.

Didi’s share price sank more than 10% at around 7:30 a.m. ET, having initially climbed as much as 14% earlier Friday morning.
The company said Friday it will delist from the New York Stock Exchange “immediately” and begin preparations for a separate listing in Hong Kong. U.S. shares are to be converted into “freely tradeable shares” on another international exchange, according to a statement.
The delisting marks an untimely end to Didi’s short-lived time as a U.S.-listed company. Investors will now be hoping for a smooth transition of Didi’s U.S.-listed shares to Hong Kong. But details on how the company will go about this are thin. The move by Didi to go ahead with the delisting at least rules out the risk of it being forced to do by regulators.

Read more about China from CNBC Pro

“Despite U.S. shares being freely tradeable upon listing on the HK exchange, we think this move is likely to be the final straw for many investors who will look to cut losses,” Neil Campling, global TMT analyst at Mirabaud Equity Research, said in a note.
“The stock also has a lot of retail investors, who we presume will be trying to run for the exit.”

Daniel Ives, managing director of Wedbush Securities, said the delisting was “just another black eye for Chinese tech stocks.”
“The Street remains very various of Chinese tech stocks and this Didi situation is another cautionary tale,” Daniel Ives, managing director of Wedbush Securities, told CNBC, adding Didi shareholders would likely rotate to another SoftBank-backed company, Grab, to play the Asian mobility market.

Grab went public Thursday following a deal with the special-purpose acquisition company Altimeter Growth Corp. Shares of the Singapore-based ride-hailing and food delivery firm lost more than a fifth of their value by the closing bell.

China’s tech crackdown

Regulators in Beijing have been flexing their muscles in an attempt to keep big Chinese internet companies in line. The clampdown began with Alibaba founder Jack Ma and his fintech company Ant Group, whose IPO was suspended late last year following critical comments from the Chinese tech billionaire on regulators.
Beijing’s tech crackdown soon moved to other areas, including ride-hailing. Chinese regulators had reportedly raised concerns with the security of Didi’s data ahead of the company’s IPO in June. Two days after its debut, Didi was hit with a review from Beijing’s cyberspace agency. A week later, officials ordered Chinese app stores to remove Didi’s main app.
According to a Bloomberg report last week, Chinese regulators asked the firm’s executives to come up with a plan to delist from the U.S. Didi declined to comment at the time.
Meanwhile, Washington is also seeking to tighten restrictions on Chinese companies floating on American exchanges. On Thursday, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission finalized rules allowing it to delist foreign stocks for failing to meet audit requirements.

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