What happened
Shares of the China-based online brokerage firm Up Fintech Holding (TIGR -0.89%) were trading more than 29% higher as of noon ET Friday after the company reported earnings results for the fourth quarter.
So what
Up Fintech reported a small loss in the quarter, but on an adjusted basis, the company broke even. Total revenue came in at $62.2 million, up from $47.2 million in Q4 2020.
The number of customer accounts on the platform grew to 1.85 million as of the end of 2021, up from 1.1 million a year before. Total account balances also grew to $17.1 billion, up from less than $16 billion a year before, although the metric fell compared to the prior quarter. Total trading volume of $85.6 billion was up by more than $20 billion from Q4 2020, although that metric, too, was down from where it stood in Q3 2021.
Image source: Getty Images.
"Of the newly funded accounts in the fourth quarter, over 90% came from outside China, and of the 673,400 total funded accounts at our company, over half are from Singapore or other international markets," said CEO Wu Tianhua in a statement. "Given we only started to operate in Singapore two years ago, the rapid growth of our Singapore client base demonstrates our execution capability and the growing appeal of our platform across multiple countries and regions."
Now what
In addition to the positive momentum provided to Up Fintech by its earnings report, all Chinese stocks listed on U.S. exchanges have been flourishing late this week after the government in Beijing voiced its support for Chinese companies that trade on foreign exchanges. Chinese regulators also said they are in talks with U.S. regulators to settle a long-standing issue regarding auditing that had put those stocks at risk of being delisted.
Chinese stocks can be harder for investors to evaluate because sudden regulatory shifts in the country can so dramatically change their business outlooks. As such, positive developments on the regulatory front are particularly good news. In addition, while account balances and trading volume did decline from the prior quarter, Up Fintech's account growth from clients outside of China bodes well for the company.
