U.S.-traded Chinese stocks fall with local market

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The slump in China's stock markets continued to spill over into U.S. exchanges on Tuesday with a measure of Chinese stocks traded on Wall Street hitting its lowest in 13 months.

The Bank of New York Mellon index of Chinese ADRs <.bkcn> fell as much as 6.1 percent on Tuesday in what would have been its largest daily drop since August 2011. The index ended down 2.8 percent as the U.S. benchmark S&P 500 <.spx> rallied in the afternoon to close 0.6 percent higher.

Some 20 Chinese ADRs are down 20 percent or more in the past month as the benchmark Shanghai Composite <.ssec> has dropped as much as 31 percent from the 2015 highs hit less than a month ago.

The sharp decline has prompted unprecedented measures, including a collective pledge over the weekend by China's top brokerages and fund managers to invest at least 120 billion yuan or more than $19 billion into stocks. Central Huijin, a unit of China's sovereign wealth fund, said it had recently bought ETFs and would continue to do so.

The recent selloff in both the local market and the ADRs followed a rally of nearly 150 percent from June 2014 to the recent highs in Shanghai.

About a dozen Chinese ADRs including Renren Inc , 58com Inc and Ctrip.com are still up 35 percent or more so far this year.

Among the ones in negative territory, widely followed Alibaba Group stands out. On Tuesday, it hit its lowest level since its debut on the New York Stock Exchange last September.

Alibaba, down 0.8 percent to $79.62, outperformed the Chinese ADR index on Tuesday but is down more than 23 percent year-to-date, while the index is down less than 3 percent over the same period.

On Tuesday, the Hong Kong equities benchmark <.hsi> fell 1 percent for a total drop of 5 percent in the past three sessions. Hong Kong stocks are up 5.8 percent for the year so far and the Shanghai benchmark is up more than 15 percent.

(Reporting by Rodrigo Campos; Editing by Andrea Ricci and David Gregorio)