Shein shares fall in long-awaited stock market debut

JUST IN: Shein shares fall as much as 10% in its long-awaited Hong Kong stock market debut, after failed attempts to list in New York and London.

Shein finally went public, and the market said no thanks.

Shares dropped as much as ten percent on debut at the Hong Kong Stock Exchange this morning, before clawing back to around three and a half percent down by lunchtime. This was supposed to be the victory lap. New York said no. London said no. Hong Kong was the third try, and even here the gong had barely stopped ringing before the price sank.

The numbers tell you why. Shein was once valued at nearly a hundred billion dollars. Today it listed at twenty six billion. That's a quarter of the old dream, for a company with 273 million customers and over a billion orders in a year. Investors looked at the labour questions, the trade tensions, the competition, and priced all of it in.

And one strategist put it plainly, those famously cheap prices are getting harder to sustain. The twelve dollar dress may be the next thing to fall.

This is Sara White, reporting for HIT.