First bets on Alibaba retreat

Short sellers are making their first bets on a retreat in Alibaba Group a week after the company priced the world’s biggest-ever initial public offering.

Bears who profit from price declines have sold short 12.1m shares, or about 3.3% of Alibaba’s listed stock, data compiled by Bloomberg and Markit, a London-based provider of financial information showed.

The Hangzhou-based company, China’s biggest e-commerce operator, sold 368.1m shares in the IPO.