Why Alibaba, Nio, Most Chinese Peers Are Shooting Up In Hong Kong Today

Shares of major U.S.-listed Chinese companies traded mostly higher in Hong Kong on Thursday, with tech giants like Alibaba Group Holdings BABA, Tencent Holdings TCEHY, and Baidu Inc BIDU trading higher, while JD.com Inc JD bucked the trend.

Li Auto Inc LI led the rally in the electric vehicle segment, while Nio Inc NIO and Xpeng Inc XPEV gained at least 4% each.

Shares of these Chinese companies ended up mixed on U.S. markets overnight.

Global Markets Recap: At press time, the benchmark Hang Seng Index was trading 0.67% higher after paring early gains.

In the U.S., the Dow Jones index closed on a muted note, dragged by losses in the oil & gas, basic materials, and industrial sectors.

Elsewhere, Shanghai's SSE Composite Index gained 0.45%, Singapore's SGX Nifty was up 0.21%, while Japan's Nikkei 225 pared gains to trade in the red.

Macro Factors: Chinese President Xi Jinping has pledged to meet the country's economic targets for the year despite the government's zero-tolerance approach to combating COVID-19 outbreaks, which brought the businesses to a grinding halt.

Xinhua reported that in a keynote speech to a virtual BRICS Business Forum on Wednesday, Xi said the country will "strengthen macro-policy adjustment and adopt more effective measures to strive to meet the social and economic development targets for 2022 and minimize the impacts of COVID-19."

According to Citigroup, Hong Kong's blue-chip stocks could climb by as much as 16% in the second half of this year, led by stronger corporate earnings, SCMP reported.

Company In News: Billionaire Jack Ma-founded Alibaba Group and Ant Financial are reportedly eyeing to disentangle their operations from each other in a bid to stave off any potential regulatory threat.

Through its Pakistan e-commerce subsidiary Daraz, Alibaba expanded its reach across Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal, and Myanmar, becoming South Asia's largest e-commerce company outside India.