© Reuters. FILE PHOTO: The logo of China’s Tencent Music Entertainment Group is seen next to an earphone in this illustration picture taken March 22, 2021. REUTERS/Florence Lo/Illustration

(Reuters) -China’s Tencent Music Entertainment Group (NYSE:TME) posted a 15% fall in quarterly revenue on Monday, hit by easing demand for its music streaming platform amid stiff competition.

Chinese regulators stripped Tencent Music of its exclusive contracts with big music labels in 2021, spurring competition from rivals such as Cloud Music and short video sharing platform Douyin.

Total revenue of the Tencent Holdings (OTC:TCEHY) Ltd-controlled company fell to 6.64 billion yuan ($979.03 million) in the first quarter from 7.82 billion yuan a year earlier.

Net income attributable to equity holders of the company fell 34.2% to 609 million yuan in the quarter ended March 31.

($1 = 6.7822 Chinese yuan renminbi)

© Reuters. Traders work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in New York City, U.S., May 12, 2022. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid/File Photo

By Amruta Khandekar and Noel Randewich

(Reuters) – The S&P 500 ended lower on Monday, with Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) and other growth stocks losing ground after downbeat Chinese economic data added to worries about a global slowdown and rising interest rates.

China’s economic activity cooled sharply in April as widening COVID-19 lockdowns took a heavy toll on consumption, industrial production and employment, adding to fears the economy could shrink in the second quarter.

However, energy stocks got a lift from optimism that China would see significant demand recovery after positive signs that coronavirus pandemic was receding in the hardest-hit areas.

The S&P 500 energy index rallied to a 2014 intra-day high, and it closed up 2.6%, making it the strongest performer among 11 sector indexes.

Investors questioned whether a strong day on Wall Street last Friday might signal the end of a recent sell-off that has left the S&P 500 down about 16% from its record high close in January.

“After the big rally on Friday, people are looking around and asking whether it feels sustainable,” said Ross Mayfield, an investment strategist at Baird in Louisville, Kentucky. “Does it feel like the momentum thrust you would see coming off of a low, or is there still more of a capitulation to be worked out?”

Many of Wall Street’s megacap growth stocks were lower, with Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN) and Google-owner Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL) losing more than 1% and weighing on the S&P 500 and Nasdaq.

Twitter (NYSE:TWTR) fell more than 8% after Bloomberg reported that Elon Musk said a deal to buy the social media company at a lower price than his previously agreed $44 billion was “not out of the question.”

Tesla, which Musk leads, fell almost 6%.

The S&P 500 healthcare sector index rose 0.7%, lifted by a 2.7% jump in Eli Lilly & Co (NYSE:LLY) after the drugmaker won U.S. approval for tirzepatide, to treat adults with type 2 diabetes.

Graphic: S&P 500 components – https://fingfx.thomsonreuters.com/gfx/mkt/lgpdwemagvo/SPX_by_marketcap.png

Investors have been worried that aggressive interest rate hikes by the U.S. Federal Reserve to combat decades-high inflation could tip the economy into a recession, with the conflict in Ukraine, supply chain snarls and the pandemic-related lockdowns in China exacerbating the economic troubles.

Data on Monday showed factory activity in New York state slumped in May for the third time this year amid a collapse in new orders and shipments.

Traders are now pricing a near 86% chance of a 50-basis-point hike by the Fed in June.

Unofficially, the S&P 500 declined 0.39% to end the session at 4,008.01 points.

The Nasdaq declined 1.20% to 11,662.79 points, while Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.08% to 32,223.42 points.

Investors are focused on retail sales data due on Tuesday, following worrying inflation and consumer sentiment data last week.

Retailers including Walmart (NYSE:WMT) Inc, Home Depot (NYSE:HD) and Target Corp (NYSE:TGT) are due to report their quarterly results this week.

Spirit Airlines (NYSE:SAVE) rallied 13.5% after JetBlue Airways (NASDAQ:JBLU) launched a hostile takeover bid for the discount carrier. JetBlue shares slipped 6.1%, while shares of rival bidder Frontier Group gained almost 6%.

Advancing issues outnumbered declining ones on the NYSE by a 1.08-to-1 ratio; on Nasdaq, a 1.35-to-1 ratio favored decliners.

The S&P 500 posted one new 52-week high and 31 new lows; the Nasdaq Composite recorded 17 new highs and 190 new lows.

Volume on U.S. exchanges was 11.3 billion shares, compared with a 13.2 billion average over the last 20 trading days.

© Reuters. FILE PHOTO: A 3D-printed Twitter logo on non-3D printed Twitter logos is seen in this picture illustration taken April 28, 2022. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo

By Katie Paul and Krystal Hu

(Reuters) -Elon Musk suggested that a lower price for Twitter Inc (NYSE:TWTR) may be appropriate as he and CEO Parag Agrawal quarreled over the company’s estimates of spam accounts on Monday, according to an attendee at a private conference where Musk was speaking.

Twitter shares extended losses in late afternoon trading following Musk’s comments, which came at a conference in Miami that was closed to the press.

Shares dropped more than 8% to close at $37.39, lower than their level the day before Musk revealed his Twitter stake in early April, sowing doubts that the billionaire entrepreneur would proceed with his $44 billion acquisition of the company at the agreed price.

Agrawal tweeted earlier on Monday that internal estimates of spam accounts on the social media platform for the last four quarters were “well under 5%,” responding to days of criticism by Musk of the company’s handling of phony accounts.

Twitter’s estimate, which has stayed the same since 2013, could not be reproduced externally given the need to use both public and private information to determine whether an account is spam, he added.

Musk, who on Friday said the deal was “temporarily on hold” pending information on spam accounts, responded to Agrawal’s defense of the company’s methodology with a poop emoji.

“So how do advertisers know what they’re getting for their money? This is fundamental to the financial health of Twitter,” Musk wrote.

Shortly after his tweets, Musk told the conference in Miami that he suspects bots – or automated accounts – make up about 20% to 25% of users, according to tweets by attendees.

Musk has pledged changes to Twitter’s content moderation practices, railing against decisions like the company’s ban of former President Donald Trump as overly aggressive while pledging to crack down on “spam bots” on the platform.

Musk has called for tests of random samples of Twitter users to identify bots, and said he has yet to see “any” analysis that shows spam accounts making up less than 5% of the user base.

Musk said on Sunday “there is some chance it might be over 90% of daily active users.”

Independent researchers have estimated that anywhere from 9% to 15% of the millions of Twitter profiles are bots.

Twitter does not currently require users to register using their real identities and expressly permits automated, parody and pseudonymous profiles on the service.

It does ban impersonation and spam, and penalizes accounts when the company determines their purpose is to “deceive or manipulate others” by engaging in scams, coordinating abuse campaigns or artificially inflating engagement.