published Sep 19, 2018, 1:42:20 PM, by Shelly Hagan and Drew Singer
(Bloomberg) —

X Financial rose 114 percent in its first trading day before paring gains to 24 percent, reinforcing signs that investors are embracing Chinese tech companies listing on U.S. exchanges.

The peer-to-peer lending firm is the latest in a flood of U.S. listings by Chinese companies, as a trade war weighs on Chinese exchanges and U.S.-based IPO candidates drag their feet. Thirteen Chinese tech firms have debuted on U.S. exchanges this year and eight are trading above their offering prices.

To help measure investor interest, X Financial has been monitoring trading in Chinese e-commerce platform Pinduoduo Inc., which went public in July, president Simon Cheng said in a phone interview with Bloomberg.

“Fintech companies in China are so different from fintech companies in the U.S. and Europe,” Cheng said. “The market is quite mature in the U.S. But in China, the market’s wide open.” He said negative sentiment toward the sector has caused X Financial’s stock to appear “cheap” despite its growth opportunity, but declined to suggest a more appropriate price level.

If X Financial can hold on to its 24 percent gains, it would be the fifth-best debut among all China tech IPOs this year, behind Qutoutiao (+128 percent), Senmiao (+41 percent), Pinduoduo (+41 percent) and Huya (+34 percent).

Trading in the Shenzhen-based fintech company was halted twice during the Wednesday morning session due to sharp price movements.

To contact the reporters on this story: Shelly Hagan in New York at shagan9@bloomberg.net ;Drew Singer in New York at dsinger28@bloomberg.net To contact the editors responsible for this story: Courtney Dentch at cdentch1@bloomberg.net Christiana Sciaudone, Arie Shapira
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