ALIBABA SLIPS 4.3% AFTER ITS HUGE IPO

Freshly minted shares of Alibaba dropped 4.3% Monday amid a broad sell-off and profit-taking following the Chinese e-commerce giant’s 38% surge Friday.

Alibaba dropped $4, or 4.3%, to $89.89 Monday, reclaiming a small slice of the $25.89 it gained Friday in its trading debut.

The slide was part of a broader sell-off that clipped the Standard & Poor’s 500 index 0.8%, the Dow Jones industrials 0.6% and the tech-heavy Nasdaq composite index 1.1%.

Alibaba set a record with its initial public offering Thursday night, raising $21.8 billion when it priced the IPO at $68 a share. After the stock’s 38% jump to $93.89 Friday, Monday’s drop didn’t cause much unease.

“I don’t think there’s anything to be concerned about Alibaba, especially after the pop it had Friday,” says James Gellert, CEO of Rapid Ratings International, which measures the financial health of companies.

“Highfliers like this are going to have volatility and up days and down days. Support for the stock and the company is extremely good,” Gellert said. “If it was down 30%, that would be an issue.”

Even as its stock pulled back Monday, Alibaba improved its standing in the record books. As of last week, Alibaba was the biggest IPO ever in the USA after it raised $21.8 billion. On Monday, Alibaba quietly became the world’s biggest IPO. The company said underwriters bought another 48 million shares. That pushed the size of the deal to $25 billion, ahead of the record $22 billion raised in 2010 by Agricultural Bank of China.