Surprise, Surprise: This Year’s Hottest US Stock was a Chinese Tech Company

There were only two Chinese tech companies that IPO’d in the US this year following a grim period of distrust and volatility on the markets – especially when it came to dealing with firms from China. But flash sales site VIPShop (NYSE:VIPS), which listed in March, has managed to break that spell by becoming the hottest overseas company of the year on US markets.

VIPShop debuted on the New York Stock Exchange at $6.50 per share, but closed yesterday at $14.42, a few cents down on its highest-ever peak. That means investors in VIPShop have seen returns of 162 percent (see below), making the e-commerce site the top-performing overseas site listed in the States. The second-highest surge was a mere 44 percent return Israeli company Caesar Stone Sdot-Yam. For comparison, the Dow Jones average saw growth of just 1.17 percent:

$VIPS is tops in 2012 (on Google Finance).

VIPShop differs from most e-commerce sites in China by focusing on time-limited and discounted sales of selected brand goods. At its current stock price, the site has a market cap of over $729 million, which has nearly doubled since we last checked in on its progress back in October.

This world-beating performance by VIPShop will likely give hope to other slated Chinese IPOs for 2013, such as browser maker UCWeb, e-book platform Shanda Cloudary, and clothing e-tailer Vancl.

The only other Chinese stock hitting US shores this year was another techie, the online gaming community YY (NASDAQ:YY), which is also doing well, currently up to $14.75 per share from its $10.50 debut last month.

[Hat-tip to Morning Whistle for spotting this]