Alibaba, Tencent shares fall in US trade dragging down peers

Shares in Alibaba Group Holding and Tencent Holdings tumbled, pulling down other Chinese stocks that trade in the U.S. after a report the U.S. is considering adding the two internet heavyweights to the China stock ban, Bloomberg reports.

Shares slumped on Wednesday after Dow Jones reported that U.S. officials are considering expanding a list of companies prohibited from receiving U.S. investments. Other actively-traded peers including Nio Inc., JD.com Inc., and Pinduoduo Inc. also fell.

The closely-watched iShares China Large-Cap ETF fell by 1.2 percent while the NASDAQ Golden Dragon China Index, which tracks other large Chinese technology stocks, dropped by 2.1 percent for its worst day since November. Alibaba fell by 5.3 percent, Tencent slumped by 4 percent and JD.com slipped by 7.7 percent.

Alibaba ADRs and Tencent ADRs see daily trading volume on average of 18.6 million and 3.8 million, respectively, far outstripping the volume of trades in the U.S. for the three telecom stocks.