NexGenData

Posted on Jun 26 • Originally published at thenextgennexus.com

Chinese ADRs Stock Screener: API for US-Listed Chinese Equities (Alibaba, JD, Pinduoduo)

#adrs #apac #api #china

TL;DR. Chinese ADRs — American Depositary Receipts representing shares in companies incorporated in China and listed on NYSE or NASDAQ — are the most accessible way for US-based investors to trade Chinese equities in US trading hours, in USD, with English filings. The universe spans roughly 250 names from Alibaba (BABA) and JD.com (JD) at the top down to smaller Cayman-incorporated VIE structures. Since the Holding Foreign Companies Accountable Act (HFCAA) of 2020 and the 2022 PCAOB inspection agreement with China, the universe has been in continuous flux — some issuers delisted, others added HK secondary listings as insurance. This guide covers the ADR universe, the data fields a US-based China investor actually needs, and a working Python pipeline using the Chinese ADRs Stock Screener actor.

What's in the Chinese ADR universe

"Chinese ADRs" in market usage means equity ADRs (and the increasingly common direct-listed Cayman-incorporated Chinese issuers, sometimes called "Chinese equities" rather than strictly ADRs) of companies with material China operations listed on US exchanges. Three rough buckets:

Mega-cap consumer / tech — Alibaba (BABA), Pinduoduo (PDD), JD.com (JD), Baidu (BIDU), NetEase (NTES), Trip.com (TCOM), Bilibili (BILI). Heavy institutional ownership, options-listed, large daily volume.
EV / new energy — NIO, XPeng (XPEV), Li Auto (LI), Zeekr (ZK). Particularly active retail trading and high-frequency news flow.
Small / mid-cap long tail — ~150-200 smaller issuers across education, fintech, biotech, and consumer. Heterogeneous liquidity, some heavily shorted, some subject to HFCAA delisting risk.

The total count moves: VIE-structured issuers periodically delist (some by choice for HK listing, some pushed off). The 2024–2026 cohort has been net additions on the back of resumed Chinese IPOs in the US after the Didi pause; this is a moving universe and any screening pipeline needs to handle additions and removals cleanly.

Why HFCAA and PCAOB matter as a data field

Under HFCAA, the SEC must identify "Commission-Identified Issuers" whose auditors are PCAOB-inspected. After the August 2022 PCAOB-CSRC inspection agreement and the subsequent December 2022 PCAOB statement, the immediate delisting risk eased — but the regime persists, and issuers can move back onto the watchlist if access is curtailed. For any US-based investor in Chinese ADRs, the issuer's PCAOB-inspection status and HFCAA flag are first-class data fields, not footnotes.

Timezone alignment is the underrated advantage

The simple reason US-based investors trade ADRs rather than direct A-shares or H-shares: trading happens in US hours, settles in USD, and the SEC filings (20-F annual reports, 6-K interim reports) are in English. A US analyst can build a same-day research workflow on Chinese names without an overnight handoff to a Hong Kong desk. The cost is roughly 50–100 bps of bid-ask plus the ADR-to-ordinary share conversion ratio, which is typically 1:1 to 1:8 depending on the issuer.

Working Python example

The Chinese ADRs Stock Screener actor returns the full ADR universe with US ticker, primary listing exchange, HFCAA / PCAOB status, ADR-to-ordinary ratio, and (where applicable) the paired HK or A-share listing. Curl:


    curl -X POST "https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/nexgendata~chinese-adrs-stock-screener/run-sync-get-dataset-items?token=$APIFY_TOKEN" \
      -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
      -d '{"minMarketCapUSD": 1000000000, "sectors": ["Internet","EV","Biotech"], "includeDualListings": true}'

Python — large-cap Chinese ADR screen with HK pair flag:


    import os, json, urllib.request

    APIFY_TOKEN = os.environ["APIFY_TOKEN"]
    ACTOR = "nexgendata~chinese-adrs-stock-screener"

    payload = json.dumps({
        "minMarketCapUSD": 1_000_000_000,
        "includeDualListings": True,
        "includeHFCAAStatus": True,
        "maxResults": 250,
    }).encode("utf-8")

    url = f"https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/{ACTOR}/run-sync-get-dataset-items?token={APIFY_TOKEN}"
    req = urllib.request.Request(url, data=payload, method="POST",
                                  headers={"Content-Type": "application/json"})

    with urllib.request.urlopen(req, timeout=600) as r:
        adrs = json.loads(r.read())

    for s in sorted(adrs, key=lambda x: -x.get("marketCapUSD", 0))[:20]:
        hk = s.get("hkPair", "—")
        print(f"{s['ticker']:<6} | {s['name'][:30]:<30} | mcap=${s['marketCapUSD']/1e9:.1f}B | HK={hk} | HFCAA={s.get('hfcaaFlag','no')}")

Returned shape:


    {
      "ticker": "BABA",
      "name": "Alibaba Group Holding Limited",
      "exchange": "NYSE",
      "lastPrice": 84.50,
      "marketCapUSD": 195000000000,
      "adrRatio": "1:8",
      "country": "China",
      "incorporation": "Cayman Islands",
      "hkPair": "09988",
      "aPair": null,
      "auditor": "PwC HK",
      "hfcaaFlag": false,
      "pcaobInspected": true,
      "lastFormFiled": "20-F",
      "lastFiledAt": "2025-07-15"
    }

How this compares to free and paid alternatives

Source	Coverage	Structured fields	Cost
yfinance / Yahoo Finance	Quotes for known tickers	Some — but no HFCAA / A-H pair	Free, terms-of-use limits
Interactive Brokers API	Tradable ADRs only	Yes — for brokerage clients	Free with account
SEC EDGAR (20-F / 6-K)	Filings only	Yes — but you parse	Free
FactSet China ADR coverage	Full + fundamentals	Yes	~$15k–$25k per seat
Bloomberg Terminal CHIDR	Full + news	Yes	~$24k per seat
Free RSS / news aggregators	News only	No	Free
Chinese ADRs Screener actor	Full universe + HFCAA + pairs	Yes, normalized JSON	PPE per screen

For a US-based researcher building a Chinese-ADR dashboard, the bottleneck on most free sources is the joinwork — you can get Yahoo quotes, SEC filings, and HKEX pairs separately and assemble them yourself, but that's a multi-week build. The screener actor exists specifically to skip that joinwork.

What this enables

ADR vs. ordinary arbitrage monitoring — pair the ADR price with the HK ordinary share price (via HKEX feed) and the ADR ratio to flag divergence
HFCAA risk dashboards — daily snapshot of which ADRs sit on / near the SEC's identified list
Sector dashboards — Chinese EVs, Chinese internet, Chinese biotech as cohorts
20-F / 6-K filing alerts — SEC filings remain the canonical English-language fundamentals source; pair with the SEC Event Router for unified monitoring

VIE structure: read the 20-F risk factors

Most Chinese ADRs use Variable Interest Entity (VIE) structures — the US-listed entity is a Cayman holdco that contracts with mainland Chinese operating companies rather than owning them directly. The structure is widely understood but periodically draws regulatory attention from both Beijing (CSRC) and Washington (SEC disclosure rules). Every Chinese ADR 20-F has a multi-page VIE risk factor section; for any non-trivial position, reading the current version of that section is the cheapest possible due diligence.

Dual-class share structures and voting concentration

A second governance feature shared across most Chinese ADRs: dual-class share structures with concentrated founder voting control. Alibaba's partnership voting structure, JD.com's Class A / Class B split with Richard Liu controlling roughly 75% of voting power despite a smaller economic stake, Pinduoduo's similar founder-control mechanics. From a US-investor perspective the dual-class structure looks similar to Alphabet or Meta; the practical difference is that under Cayman law minority-shareholder protections are materially thinner than under Delaware. For any fundamental analysis, the dual-class ratio and voting concentration deserve explicit treatment alongside the VIE structure.

Secondary HK listings as a hedge

Since 2019, most large Chinese ADRs have added secondary Hong Kong listings as a hedge against US delisting risk under HFCAA. Alibaba (HK 09988), JD.com (HK 09618), NetEase (HK 09999), Baidu (HK 09888), Bilibili (HK 09626). The HK listing typically trades at a small premium or discount to the ADR adjusted by the ADR ratio. Tracking the spread is a tractable arbitrage indicator and a useful sanity check on the ADR's pricing — a sustained discount can flag concerns specific to the US listing (HFCAA, depository agent issues) rather than the underlying business. The screener returns the HK pair where one exists; pairing with our HKEX feed closes the loop.

Get started: Pull the full Chinese ADR universe free at the Chinese ADRs Stock Screener actor page.

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