(Yicai Global) Jan. 17 -- Qudian's stock price plunged to a record low after the Chinese online micro-loan provider withdrew its earnings guidance for fiscal 2019, leaving investors in the dark as it do not provide a new forecast.

The shares [NYSE:QD] fell 19 percent to USD3.55 each in New York yesterday, trimming its market value to USD899.8 million. The Beijing-based firm priced them at USD24 in its 2017 initial public offering.

Qudian will not publish a revised forecast anytime soon due to recent regulatory and operational uncertainties, the financial platform said in a statement yesterday. But it did disclose that the fourth quarter is likely to have been less profitable due to rising loan default rates. Last November, the firm cut its annual profit forecast to CNY4 billion (USD582 million) from a previous target of CNY4.5 billion.

Fourth-quarter regulatory changes impacted the consumer finance sector, including further restrictions on loan collection practices, tougher user data privacy rules and an order for peer-to-peer lenders to quit the business, the company said. Consumer credit funding shrank and delinquency rates rose across the sector as a result. And in May, e-commerce titan Alibaba Group Holding sold its Qudian shares.

The company has suspended its credit trial program and will scale back loan volumes as part of a more prudent strategy, it said.

Qudian will also kick off a USD500 million share buyback program over the next 30 months, it added. Share buybacks are typically aimed at removing some of a publicly traded firm's shares from the secondary market, thereby buoying the stock price.

In the third quarter, Qudian was still going strong as it reported a 53 percent jump in non-GAAP net profit to CNY1.1 billion from a year earlier. Its revenue climbed by 34 percent to CNY2.6 billion. By September, the platform had 78.3 million registered users. In the third quarter, the rate of non-performing loans was 1.6 percent.

Editor: Emmi Laine