• NYSE:BABA fell by 1.64% on Thursday as China stocks continued to pull back.
• AliBaba is taking steps to protect its female employees amidst the sexual assault scandal.
• Baidu earnings top Wall Street, but the emergence of COVID variants gives the market pause. 

NYSE:BABA is showing continued weakness as it continues to be mired in scandals at the most inopportune times. AliBaba was under the microscope of the Chinese government earlier this year and was slapped with a record-setting fine. AliBaba’s fintech company Ant Group had its much anticipated IPO delayed until later this year after the conglomerate was under investigation. On Thursday, shares of AliBaba fell by a further 1.64% to close the trading session at $191.66. AliBaba is down 4% so far this week and 8.5% for the month now as the bearish sentiment continues to pummel the stock. 

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Following the recent sexual assault scandal that rocked the company, AliBaba is establishing a committee to follow through with an internal investigation. In addition to this group, the company is setting up a hotline for sexual harassment complaints from employees, as it continues to try and save face. The Workplace Environment committee will be chaired by Group Deputy Chief People Officer Jane Jiang, as well as Chief Financial Officer Maggie Wu and Chief People Officer Judy Tong. 

BABA share price

Other Chinese stocks continued to exhibit weakness as DiDi (NYSE:DIDI), JD.Com (NASDAQ:JD), PinDuoDuo (NASDAQ:PDD), Nio (NYSE:NIO), and XPeng (NYSE:XPEV) all tumbled on Thursday. The biggest laggard in the industry was social media platform Baidu (NASDAQ:BIDU) which reported its quarterly earnings before the bell. Like EV maker Nio did yesterday, Baidu topped Wall Street estimates, but shares were still down over 3% during the session. Baidu forecasted that the re-emergence of the coronavirus in areas of China could adversely affect the economy in the coming quarters.