Chinese growth stocks are back in favor.
LightInTheBox (LITB 5.76%) became the first Chinese company to go public on a stateside exchange since last year on Thursday.
The online retailer of apparel, gadgets, and home furnishings priced its IPO at $9.50 on Wednesday night, closing out the week 32% higher.
The IPO itself is a pretty big deal. You have to go all the way back to November of last year to find the last time that a Chinese company was able to go public on a U.S. exchange.
LightInTheBox has yet to turn an annual profit, but revenue did soar 72% to $200 million last year. LightInTheBox has some appeal in that it isn't merely limited to China. Its namesake website is offered in various different languages, and it even offers free worldwide shipping on some of its pricier items including wedding gowns. This is a Chinese e-tailer that is more along the lines of stateside e-commerce initiatives, and that may help it fare better than some of the China-centric online retailers that stumbled after hot starts. In short, you can kick the tires yourself.
Are investors finally ready to buy back into China? Are the high growth rates and often reasonable valuations enough to outweigh the geopolitical risks of buying into Chinese growth stocks?
Let's take a closer look at some of the winners from last week.
|
Company |
June 7 |
Weekly Gain |
|---|---|---|
|
Kandi (KNDI +0.04%) |
$5.69 |
52% |
|
JinkoSolar (JKS +3.30%) |
$9.20 |
16% |
|
Dangdang (DANG +0.00%) |
$7.34 |
14% |
|
Ctrip.com (CTRP +0.02%) |
$33.87 |
9% |
Source: Barron's.
Kandi was China's biggest winner, soaring 52% after the country approved the company's first all-electric sedan developed in partnership with automotive titan Geely for road use. Kandi's earlier products rely largely on swapping out batteries at local utility providers, but naturally there's plenty of upside as it expands into more conventional electric sedans. It's certainly too early to start calling this the Tesla of China, but it has a strong partner in Geely as it tries to make a push for electric vehicles in a country where automotive emissions pollution can use some curbing.
JinkoSolar moved sharply higher after posting a narrower quarterly loss than Wall Street was expecting. Solar energy has been out of favor, but it's hard to ignore the 36% spike in shipments that JinkoSolar sported in its latest report as a sign that business is starting to pick up. Yes, JinkoSolar is losing a lot money, but when the market's settling for a deficit of $1.66 a share and you come through with just $0.92 a share in red ink, the market will more often than not applaud the performance.
Dangdang didn't have any company-specific news, but the actively traded online retailer took off after investors snapped up shares of smaller rival LightInTheBox. It may not be a justified sympathy play. Unlike LightInTheBox, which is a global e-tailer that dabbles in big-ticket items, the average order at Dangdang is small and primarily for media items. Dangdang also isn't growing as quickly as LightInTheBox.
Finally, we have Ctrip hitting a fresh 52-week high in moving higher last week. It's been a month since Ctrip soared after delivering blowout quarterly results, but momentum continues to build for the country's leading travel portal. China's economy may be slowing, but it's still growing at a healthy clip when pitted against the rest of the world. As China's middle class grows and the appetite for travel intensifies, Ctrip and its smaller peers all stand to benefit from the increased activity. In the meantime, it doesn't hurt that Ctrip has beaten Wall Street's profit targets by 29% or better in each of the past four quarters.
Betting on China
There's plenty of growth still to be had if you buy the right Chinese growth stocks.
