09:13 AM EDT, 06/03/2024 (MT Newswires) -- Financial stocks were edging higher pre-bell Monday with the Financial Select Sector SPDR Fund ( XLF ) recently up 0.03%.

The Direxion Daily Financial Bull 3X Shares ( FAS ) was 0.1% up while its bearish counterpart Direxion Daily Financial Bear 3X Shares ( FAZ ) was down 0.3%.

Fanhua ( FANH ) said it will collaborate with Baidu ( BIDU ) AI Cloud to jointly develop an AI-powered insurance sales assistant application. Fanhua ( FANH ) shares were down 2.8% pre-bell.

Blackstone (BX) is exploring the sale of Japanese consumer healthcare firm Alinamin Pharmaceutical for around 300 billion yen ($1.9 billion), Bloomberg reported, citing people familiar with the situation. Blackstone shares were up 0.4% premarket.