chinas hongkonglisted tech stocks were sharply lower on friday deepening a protracted selloff in the sector after regulators said some of the countrys largest internet firms were at risk of being delisted from the us market shares of baidu inc fell as much as 88 before hong kongs midday trading break following a 80 slump for its nasdaqlisted american depositary receipts overnight earlier this week the company and others including videostreaming platform iqiyi inc and social media company weibo corp were added by the us securities and exchange commission to a provisional list of foreign companies that face delisting if they dont allow american regulators to review their audits for three consecutive years chinese laws currently forbid companies from doing so iqiyi and weibo dont trade in hong kong other hong konglisted chinese internet giants followed baidus rout alibaba group holding ltd lost 42 meituan shed 35 jdcom inc was down 36 and bilibili inc dropped 66 these companies have not been identified by the sec in its provisional list but many analysts think they may be eventually added if authorities from the us and china dont reach a compromise to resolve the two countries conflicting rules these heavyweights losses sent the hang seng tech index 20 lower taking the benchmarks yeartodate decline to over 20 while baidus inclusion into the list came as no surprise it was the first major chinese tech stock to be named by the us regulator this time chinese tech giants names are being specifically mentioned by the sec and thus we may still see some knee jerk reaction especially given the current fragile investor confidence in the sector after a yearlong tech crackdown by beijing and rising uschina tensions over the russiaukraine war said uob kay hian analyst chun sung oong in response to the secs latest move the china securities regulatory commission on thursday told reporters that communications are ongoing and both sides are willing to resolve the issue the securities regulator also said that the us secs list updates are a normal procedure and whether delistings would eventually take place would depend on uschina negotiations the public company accounting oversight board a us audit watchdog last week said speculation about a final uschina deal on the auditing requirement was premature