Alibaba, NIO stocks soar after report Ant Group OK’d to set up financial holding company

The U.S.-listed shares of China-based companies were seeing big and broad gains in premarket trading Friday, after Reuters reported that China’s central bank accepted Ant Group’s application to set up a financial holding company. That fueled hopes that China’s regulatory crackdown was easing. The iShares China Large-Cap exchange-traded fund
FXI,
-3.86%
jumped 4.1%. Among the more-active China American depositary shares (ADS), shares of Alibaba Group Holding Ltd.
BABA,
-6.09%
shot up 9.3%, NIO Inc.
NIO,
-4.62%
ran up 5.1%, JD.com Inc.
JD,
-3.59%
climbed 9.2%, Pinduoduo Inc.
PDD,
-2.38%
powered up 6.8% and XPeng Inc.
XPEV,
-4.96%
hiked up 6.7%. The FXI ETF has gained 0.1% over the past three months through Thursday, while the S&P 500
SPX,
-3.25%
has dropped 16.9%.