(Yicai) Oct. 13 -- JD.Com’s shares sank after analysts at Morgan Stanley and other financial firms lowered their price targets on the Chinese archrival of Alibaba Group Holding. 

In Hong Kong today, JD.Com [HKG: 9618] closed 11.5 percent lower at HKD104.20 (USD13.40), bringing the decline to 53 percent so far this year. Its New York-traded stock [NASDAQ: JD] was down 5.1 percent in pre-market trading as of 8.10 a.m. local time, after slumping 8.3 percent yesterday to USD27.83.

The slump in the online retailer’s stock follows downgrades that have sapped market confidence, Wang Pengbo, senior financial analyst at consultancy Botong, said to Yicai. 

Macquarie Group has downgraded JD to ‘neutral’ from ‘outperform,’ with a new price target of HKD124, down from HKD204, while Morgan Stanley downgraded it to ‘equal-weight’ from ‘outperform,’ cutting the target to USD33 from USD55.

Nomura has maintained its ‘buy’ rating on JD, but lowered the price target to HKD174 from HKD187, as it expects the company to have CNY212 billion (USD29 billion) in retail revenue this year, 4 percent below the market consensus.

In the face of fierce competition, JD has only met analysts’ minimal expectations for business growth, Wang said, adding that the Beijing-based firm’s transformation is still in the exploratory phase and needs more time.

The internet giant has been making management and business changes over the past year. In May, Xu Lei stepped down as chief executive officer, and Sandy Xu, chief financial officer at the time, was named as new CEO. In June, Yu Rui, CEO of JD Logistics, resigned and Hu Wei, CEO of product development, took on the role.

JD.Com’s net profit jumped 50 percent to CNY6.6 billion (USD903.4 million) in the second quarter from a year earlier, while revenue rose 8 percent to CNY287.9 billion (USD39.5 billion), according to its latest financial report.

Editor: Emmi Laine