Tencent Bulls Face the Unthinkable as Tesla, Snap Weigh on Stock

(Bloomberg) -- Something unusual is happening to Asia’s biggest stock: it’s falling behind.

Shares of Tencent Holdings Ltd. have fared worse than the Hang Seng Index for seven straight weeks, the longest such streak since 2012. While they rebounded from this year’s low on Tuesday, another week of underperformance would mark the worst-ever period for its shareholders relative to the Hong Kong benchmark.

Fans of the Chinese Internet giant, which reports quarterly results next week, aren’t used to being overtaken by the broader market. The stock outperformed the city’s benchmark every full year but one since its 2004 listing, and had returned some 60,000 percent to early investors. Still, its decline from a peak in January wiped out as much as $117 billion from the shares.

Read BI’s preview of Tencent’s first quarter earnings.

Concern that the company’s investments in the likes of China Literature Ltd., Tesla Inc. and Snap Inc. are getting crushed has weighed on a stock that has struggled to bounce off a key technical level. The options market is implying a move of 2.5 percent in either direction after the earnings release, which would be the largest reaction in more than two years, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

To contact the reporter on this story: Sofia Horta e Costa in Hong Kong at shortaecosta@bloomberg.net.

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Richard Frost at rfrost4@bloomberg.net, Philip Glamann

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