Wall Street is getting excited about these Chinese stocks — and upgrading three to 'buy'

Published Sun, Mar 24 20246:50 AM EDT

Evelyn Cheng @in/evelyn-cheng-53b23624 @chengevelyn

Investment analysts have upgraded at least three U.S.-listed Chinese stocks to buy so far this month. The positive view comes as the many Chinese companies are reporting earnings for the last three months of 2023 and the full year. While many analysts are skeptical China can meet its "around 5%" growth target for 2024 without further stimulus, the country did report better-than-expected economic data in retail sales, industrial production and fixed asset investment for the first two months of the year. Here are the Chinese stocks that analysts are turning bullish on: Tencent Music Entertainment — Citi upgraded the stock to buy on Wednesday with a price target of $13 a share, up nearly 18% from Tuesday's close. The company operates one of China's major alternatives to Spotify. TME's fourth quarter results beat expectations, helped by "outperformance of online music" revenues, the Citi report said. "We believe TME's steady/resilient subscription music business with expanding capabilities of music value chain and ramp-up of long-form audio and diversified use case scenarios across multi-channels/devices would support [a] sustained growth outlook," the analysts added. Kingsoft Cloud — JPMorgan on March 10 upgraded the cloud services company to overweight, but trimmed its price target by 30 cents to $4.20 a share based on a lower revenue forecast. That's still about 30% above where Kingsoft Cloud shares closed Tuesday. JPMorgan expects the company will break even in the first quarter on an earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization basis, and achieve break even for all of 2024 — the first time ever. That's contrary to the consensus view of an EBITDA loss, the analysts noted. Their optimistic case is based on revenue shifting to higher-margin sources such as Kingsoft's fast-growing business in artificial intelligence, as well as a decline in costs due to asset write-offs in the third quarter. Vnet Group — BofA on Tuesday upgraded the data center operator's stock to buy with a $2.70 price target, down from $3.90 previously but still more than 35% above where shares closed Tuesday. The analysts expect news of a local government contract and demand from short video companies to boost VNET's revenue in the years ahead. The company already operates data centers in more than 20 cities in China, according to the report. Analysts are also finding more reasons to turn incrementally optimistic about other Chinese stocks. Earlier this month, on March 10, JPMorgan upgraded shares of video streaming and gaming company Bilibili to neutral, from underweight, with a price target of $11, slightly below where shares closed Tuesday. The analysts expect Bilibili can reach its double-digit revenue growth target for the year with the help of new game releases. They also pointed out the company achieved two quarters of positive operating cashflow in 2023. "With these catalysts, we think share price downside is limited in the next 3-6" months, the report said. Deutsche Bank analysts on March 8 also initiated coverage of China's auto sector with five buy-rated stocks: Great Wall Motor, BYD, Seres, Li Auto and JMC. Only Li Auto is listed in the U.S. —With reporting by Michael Bloom