Guangzhou, one of China's largest cities, set a five-day lockdown in the Baiyun district, which is home to 3.76 million people and 0ne of the country's busiest airports. China on Sunday reported 26,824 new cases, with three deaths reported in Beijing.

BABA, along with JD.com (JD), didn't release specific gross merchandise volume for its Nov. 11 Singles Day, the world's biggest annual shopping event. Alibaba did say that volume was comparable to last year, when the company reported gross merchandise volume of $84.5 billion, up more than 8% from the year-ago period. But that was a sharp slowdown from 26% growth in 2020.

Sentiment was weak around Chinese stocks in October after the Biden administration announced new restrictions on China's access to U.S. semiconductor technology, including restrictions on the exports of some types of chips used in supercomputing and artificial intelligence. It also imposed tighter rules on the sale of chip equipment to China.

Alibaba stock rallied sharply in late August on reports that Beijing and U.S. regulators were close to an audit-inspection deal.

In late July, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission added Alibaba to a list of Chinese firms at risk of being delisted for not opening their books to U.S. accounting regulators.

Buyers lifted Alibaba stock on Aug. 4, but BABA stock, closed well off highs after the company announced a partnership with Chinese EV maker Xpeng (XPEV). Xpeng is opening a computing center that will use Alibaba's cloud division to work on software for driverless cars. Alibaba was an investor in Xpeng before the news.

Headline flow has been busy around Chinese stocks in recent months. Chinese stocks rallied on July 7 on a Bloomberg report that China is considering letting local governments sell up to $220 billion in bonds for infrastructure spending.

Alibaba stock jumped on June 17 but pared early gains after Reuters reported that China's central bank accepted Ant Group's application to set up a financial holding company.

In early November 2020, Chinese authorities suspended the $34.5 billion Ant Group IPO in Shanghai and Hong Kong. Ant Group is the fintech arm of Alibaba. The decision to suspend the IPO came after Shanghai exchange officials said the exchange would halt the listing due to the company's inability to fulfill conditions amid changes in the regulatory environment.

Sentiment was also positive around Alibaba stock and other Chinese stocks like JD.com (JD) and Pinduoduo (PDD) in late April. That's when Bloomberg reported that Beijing is in talks with the U.S. to allow regulators to conduct on-site audits of U.S.-listed Chinese firms.

As part of its Nov. 17 earnings report, which showed adjusted profit up 5% year over year to $1.82 a share but revenue down 6% to $29.1 billion, BABA said it's increasing its share buyback program by $15 billion, on top of an existing $25 billion program. As of Nov. 16, the company said it already repurchased $18 billion worth of stock under its existing program.

In early August, Alibaba reported fiscal first-quarter revenue of $30.7 billion, down nearly 4% from the year-ago quarter but slightly above the consensus of around $30 billion. Adjusted profit of $1.75 a share was also above the $1.58 consensus.

Alibaba's China commerce segment fell 1% to $21.19 billion. Alibaba's cloud segment did revenue of $1.59 billion, up 10% year over year.

Alibaba stock gapped up in late May after the company reported adjusted profit of $1.25 a share, down 20% from the year-ago quarter but above the consensus estimate for $1.07. Revenue increased 13% to $32.2 billion, helped by strength in its domestic e-commerce business.

In a sign of confidence about its business, Alibaba announced it would increase its buyback program to $25 billion from $15 billion. It's already bought back 56.2 million shares for $9.2 billion.

Increased regulatory scrutiny has weighed on Alibaba and other Chinese stocks for the past couple of years. Besides a strict regulatory environment, Chinese stocks are also dealing with a slowing economy, Covid shutdowns, supply-chain issues and inflation.

In April 2020, China regulators fined Alibaba $2.8 billion after an antimonopoly probe. At the time, it looked like BABA stock was ready to break out of a downtrend. But the stock got turned away at its 50-day moving average. It tried to rally above the 50-day line again in late April but sellers knocked the stock lower again.

BABA stock crashed another 8% on Nov. 10 after Chinese regulators announced new draft antimonopoly rules for China online platforms like Alibaba and JD.com, among others.

Alibaba soared 10% on Dec. 6 on news of a management shakeup and an overhaul of its ecommerce business. Maggie Wu departed as chief financial officer in April. Her replacement, Toby Xu, joined Alibaba in July 2018 and was appointed deputy chief financial officer in July 2019.

Alibaba also announced plans to restructure its ecommerce operations by forming two new digital commerce divisions, focused on international and domestic markets.

Meanwhile, investor reaction was tepid to the company's Investor Day on Dec. 16-17. Soon after, BABA stock slumped nearly 4% on Dec. 22 after China's IT regulator disciplined the company for not reporting an open-source security vulnerability to the government.

It's hard to find a company with a more impressive track record of growth than Alibaba. The company has a five-year annualized earnings growth rate of 18%, although earnings have declined for four straight quarters, and revenue growth has been slowing.

The company has been able to deliver top-line growth despite a slowdown in its core e-commerce business. But revenue fell 4% to $30.7 billion when the company reported fiscal Q1 results in early August.

Alibaba's Composite Rating of 48 (on a scale of 1-99 with 99 being the best) has been hurt mainly by weak price performance in recent months.d in July.

A stock's relative strength line, found in daily and weekly charts at Investors.com, compares the stock's daily price performance to the S&P 500. An upward-sloping RS line means the stock is outperforming the S&P 500. A downward-sloping line means the stock is lagging the S&P 500.

Alibaba stock broke out over a trend line on May 26, helped by a strong earnings report. It didn't take long for BABA stock to reclaim its 50-day moving average. Alibaba was sandwiched between its 50-day line and 200-day line for a while, but support gave away

Alibaba's Accumulation/Distribution Rating has improved to B+, helped by some heavy-volume gains recently.

Overhead supply is a major issue for BABA stock, with Alibaba more than 50% off its high.

A decisive move above the 50-day line Tuesday was enough to break BABA stock out of its downtrend and give a buy signal, but BABA's 200-day moving average just below 100 is a potential resistance level to watch. New buyers could also wait for BABA stock to trade sideways above its 50-day line for a few days to digest its recent gains.

The 200-day line could be a tough nut to crack for BABA stock. But it might be able to do it amid new signs of institutional buying.