The Trump administration’s move to ban U.S. residents from doing business with Tencent Holdings Ltd.’s WeChat app rippled through Chinese markets, erasing $46 billion from the Internet giant’s market value and sending the yuan to its biggest slump in two weeks.
The U.S. president’s executive order, which also applied to ByteDance Ltd.’s TikTok, fueled concern that the deteriorating U.S.-China relationship will weigh on companies, economies and markets. Confusion over the scope of the order led to volatile trading on Friday, with Tencent plunging more than 10% before paring its loss to 6.8% at the midday break.