There was a time when a Chinese internet company’s initial public offering was the hottest thing on Wall Street.
As the e-commerce giant Alibaba prepared to go public on the New York Stock Exchange a decade ago, the world’s biggest banks competed fiercely to underwrite the offering. When the opening bell rang on Sept. 19, 2014, stock traders cheered, wearing hoodies in Alibaba’s signature orange over their suits. The I.P.O. raised $25 billion, the biggest listing ever at the time. Scores of other Chinese companies raised billions in the United States over the next few years.
Those days are firmly in the past. Wall Street has not seen…