U.S.-listed Chinese shares surge, set for best week ever

[March 19, 2022]  (Reuters) - U.S-listed shares of major Chinese companies including Didi Global and Alibaba surged on Friday, set to wrap a week that was marked by China's top policymaker laying out plans to support the country's capital markets.

Shares of the Chinese companies jumped on Friday, with ride-hailing firm Didi Global leading the gains with a 54% surge. Bilibili was trading up 21%, JD.com up 9%, Alibaba gaining 10% and Baidu up 6.3%.

The iShares MSCI China exchange-traded fund was up 5%.

On Wednesday, Chinese Vice Premier Liu He urged the roll-out of market-friendly policies to support the economy and caution in introducing measures that risked hurting markets.

He said talks between Chinese and U.S. regulators on Chinese companies listed in the United States have made positive progress and regulators are working on specific cooperation plans.

U.S. President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping on Friday spoke on a two-hour video call about Russia's invasion of Ukraine and Chinese media said Xi underlined that such conflicts are in no-one's interests.

China's securities regulator said on Wednesday it would continue to communicate with U.S. regulators and strive to reach an agreement on China-U.S. audit supervision cooperation as soon as possible.

People visit the Alibaba booth during the 2021 China International Fair for Trade in Services (CIFTIS) in Beijing, China September 4, 2021. REUTERS/Florence Lo

Didi, which debuted on the New York Stock Exchange in June 2021, has been the target of a probe by Chinese authorities who have asked it to take down its app from mobile app stores while its handling of customer data was under investigation.

Commenting on Didi's stock price surge on Friday, Michael Hewson, Chief Market Analyst at CMC Markets UK said, "This is a bit of a repricing of Didi because it really didn't move in the first couple of days of the rebound that we saw earlier this week."

S3 Partners analyst Ihor Dusaniwsky said Didi had reduced its short exposure over the last month, while its shares were shorted when its price weakened recently.

(Reporting by Nivedita Balu and Bansari Mayur Kamdar in Bengaluru, additional reporting by Akash Sriram; Editing by Shailesh Kuber)

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