Munger-tied firm halves stake in Alibaba as stocks seesaw

Daily Journal, a newspaper and software business that counts Charlie Munger as one of the overseers of its stock portfolio, cut its stake in Chinese internet giant Alibaba (9988) by roughly half.

The Los Angeles-based company owned 300,000 American depositary shares in Alibaba at the end of March, according to a regulatory filing Monday. That's down from 602,060 at the end of last year. Daily Journal's current Alibaba holdings were valued at roughly US$30.5 million (HK$237.9 million) as of Monday.

For years, Munger led Daily Journal as chairman, in addition to his role as a vice-chairman at Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway.

Shares of Alibaba in Hong Kong fell in the morning but later followed a tech rally and rebounded 0.5 percent to close at HK$99 yesterday.

Over the past year, many Alibaba investors have already started swapping its US-listed shares for Hong Kong stock to contain risks from a potential American delisting and Sino-US tensions.

On April 4, some mysterious investors transferred 2.95 percent or 640 million shares of Alibaba from ADRs to Hong Kong shares via Citi Bank. And now around 55.49 percent of the company's shares are under registration within Hong Kong's Central Clearing and Settlement System, which can be classified as equities listed in the city.

The Hang Seng Index seesawed from 20,988 points to 21,519 points yesterday and closed 110 points higher at 21,319 points.

It bounced back in afternoon trading led by the rebound of some tech and consumption shares.

Tencent (0700) went up by 3.6 percent, joining the rest of China's gaming industry in a rise after regulators approved the country's first batch of new titles in more than eight months.

The Hang Seng Tech Index advanced 1.4 percent at the close, snapping four sessions of declines. Bilibili (9626) and GDS (9698) were the best performers with shares rising 12.78 percent and 7.7 percent, respectively.

The rebound came after the China Securities Regulatory Commission on Monday again pledged further support to the "healthy" development of listed companies.

"The market is waiting for the US inflation figure so the broader sentiment is a bit cautious today, despite the good news in the regulatory front in China," said Linus Yip, a strategist at First Shanghai Securities.

US consumer prices rose 8.5 percent in March, the most since late 1981, compared to the 8.4 percent projected and bolstered expectations that the Federal Reserve will raise interest rates by a half-percentage point next month.