🔥 Alibaba, PDD, Tencent, JD.com & Sea/Shopee — which one is best positioned for the next AI + e-commerce cycle? I’ve been thinking about the recent debate around Alibaba and Michael Burry’s bearish view. Alibaba is down about 0.7% in the U.S. session in the screenshot, while its Hong Kong shares were slightly higher. But personally, I think focusing only on “Is Alibaba a buy or sell?” misses the bigger picture. 👉 The more interesting question is: What happens to the entire Asian internet sector as companies spend aggressively on AI, compete for online consumers, and try to turn that investment into higher future revenue? Instead of looking at one stock at a time, I want to compare several companies that are exposed to this broader trend: 🇨🇳 Alibaba — AI + Cloud + E-commerce 🇨🇳 PDD Hold

📊 Alibaba’s latest quarter shows a fascinating contradiction: the business is growing, especially in Cloud and AI, but the cost of that growth is becoming increasingly visible in earnings and cash flow. 🚀 Revenue Growth Is Still Real Alibaba’s August 2026 quarter, FY27 Q1, delivered revenue of approximately CN¥268.95bn, representing 8.6% year-over-year growth and slightly beating expectations. 📈 The biggest highlight was Cloud & AI Compute Services, which generated around CN¥48.4bn, up roughly 45% YoY. ☁️🤖 This was one of the strongest growth rates Alibaba’s cloud business has delivered in years and reinforces the argument that AI computing demand is becoming an increasingly important growth engine. However, investors need to look beyond the revenue headline. 👀 While sales are accelera

Hello. Last friday's US session was a quiet one — $Invesco QQQ(QQQ)$ closed up 0.35 per cent, $SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust(SPY)$ 0.41 per cent and the Dow 0.98 per cent — though the week as a whole still finished lower. What mattered happened after the close. On 23 August $BABA-W(09988)$ announced and priced a placement of new shares worth HK$80 billion, about US$10.2 billion, sold at an 8.4 per cent discount, with the net proceeds going into full-stack AI infrastructure. That is the fourth such raise in the same week. Intel sold US$20 billion of stock at US$95 a share;

Hello. The Treasury's buyback tool was upsized again, and the bond market bought it for half a day. US Treasury Secretary Bessent said on Thursday that the size of each long-dated Treasury buyback had gone from US$2 billion to at least US$4 billion, and could rise further. The 30-year yield fell as much as 10 basis points and the dollar index weakened — and then the bond market pushed back. The reason is simple enough: buybacks deal with liquidity, while the deficit, inflation and the term premium have not moved at all. There was a new variable that day: the consumer. $S&P 500(.SPX)$ closed down 0.87 per cent and $Dow Jones(.DJI)$ 1.32 per cent, about 600 points — Barro

Last Week's Recap 1. Weekly Market Digest: Stocks Flat, Yields at 2007 Highs, Inflation Moderates, Oil Rebounds Flat market — U.S. indexes were little changed as stocks took a breather after the prior week's record highs. S&P 500 and NASDAQ ended fractionally higher; Dow fractionally lower. Elevated yields — 30-year Treasury yield climbed back to ~5.26% (highest since 2007); 10-year at 4.69%, while the 2-year eased slightly to 4.17%. Moderating inflation — July CPI held steady at 3.4% annual rate (down from June's 3.5%); PPI showed inflation little changed from the prior month. Robust revenue — S&P 500 Q2 revenue growth on pace for 15% (highest since Q4 2021), per FactSet; earnings growth tracking above 50%, strongest since Q2 2021. Oil rebounds — U.S. crude rose above $82 Friday (

Hello. The first thing to move this week was not a set of results. It was policy. The US government spoke up and asked Apple to steer clear of Chinese memory chips. That one request lifted the entire memory chain on Monday. $SanDisk Corp.(SNDK)$ closed up 8.88 per cent at US$1,786.85, and $Tradr 2X Long SNDK Daily ETF(SNXX)$ rose 17.73 per cent in a day. $Micron Technology(MU)$ closed up 4.13 per cent at US$1,011.75, back above US$1,000. $Western Digital(WDC)$ rose 5.35 per cent, $SK hynix(SKHY)$ 3.04 p

Hello. The weekend is over, and the most striking thing left from Friday's close was a pair of numbers pointing opposite ways: $Advanced Micro Devices(AMD)$ up 6.50 per cent, $Broadcom(AVGO)$ down 5.94 per cent. Both are AI chip names, and they spent the day going in different directions. What the market was reading that day was not results. It was second-quarter position disclosures. Stanley Druckenmiller's 13F showed him loading up on Amazon and AMD while dumping a batch of chipmakers, and a Soros fund was adding AMD too, alongside $Micron Technology(MU)$, $Appli

After the Hong Kong market closes on August 20, Alibaba will release its first-quarter FY2027 earnings report. According to analyst estimates, Alibaba’s Q1 FY2027 revenue is expected to reach RMB 268.53 billion, representing an 8.4% year-over-year increase, while adjusted EPS is estimated at RMB 1.397. In terms of stock performance, Alibaba’s stock has generally been on a downward trend this year. After hitting a low in late June, the stock has since rebounded somewhat, but it remains down approximately 12.6% year to date. As for revenue structure, Alibaba’s business is primarily divided into four segments: Alibaba China E-commerce Group, Alibaba International Digital Commerce Group, Cloud Intelligence Group, and All Others. China E-commerce remains the company’s largest revenue contributo

Alibaba (BABA) June-quarter 2026 revenue rose 9% YoY to ~RMB 269B. Cloud/AI external revenue accelerated to +45%, with AI-related products delivering a 12th consecutive quarter of triple-digit growth. Core e-commerce (customer management revenue) remains soft amid competition and macro pressures; overall profitability was impacted by heavy AI investments and lower investment gains. New models (Qwen series) and agentic tools are advancing. Shares have recovered from 52-week lows but remain volatile (recently around the $120 area). Valuation is inexpensive relative to AI/cloud growth potential; many analysts maintain Buy ratings with meaningful upside targets. Future potential: Improving via AI/cloud transformation, which is increasingly offsetting e-commerce headwinds. Success depends on su

Alibaba (BABA) June-quarter 2026 revenue rose 9% YoY to ~RMB 269B. Cloud/AI external revenue accelerated to +45%, with AI-related products delivering a 12th consecutive quarter of triple-digit growth. Core e-commerce (customer management revenue) remains soft amid competition and macro pressures; overall profitability was impacted by heavy AI investments and lower investment gains. New models (Qwen series) and agentic tools are advancing. Shares have recovered from 52-week lows but remain volatile (recently around the $120 area). Valuation is inexpensive relative to AI/cloud growth potential; many analysts maintain Buy ratings with meaningful upside targets. Future potential: Improving via AI/cloud transformation, which is increasingly offsetting e-commerce headwinds. Success depends on su

I would wait rather than chase the insider buy. The more important signal has already arrived in the numbers: Alibaba’s cloud and AI-services revenue grew 45%, but quarterly net profit fell 75% as capex surged 75% to RMB67.68bn.  That actually strengthens both sides of the debate. Bulls can point to genuine cloud reacceleration, while bears can argue that Alibaba is effectively buying that growth at a very high near-term cost. The HK$80bn placement adds dilution and raises the hurdle further. Alibaba now needs to demonstrate that AI infrastructure produces attractive incremental returns, not merely faster revenue. Management is targeting roughly a mid-teens return on AI investment over three years.  So I would treat the CEO purchase as a confidence signal, not a buy signal. The m

I would watch margins next quarter, while giving Alibaba a modest cloud re-rating. The bullish case is real: Cloud and Compute grew 45%, its strongest growth in 22 quarters, while cloud adjusted EBITA jumped 133% and margin expanded to about 12%. AI product revenue has also delivered triple-digit growth for 12 consecutive quarters.  But I would not fully re-rate BABA on cloud growth yet. The problem is capital intensity. Capex rose 75% to RMB67.7bn, while GAAP net profit fell roughly 75%. Management is effectively exchanging near-term earnings and free cash flow for future AI capacity.  The crucial question is therefore not whether AI demand exists. It clearly does. It is whether cloud revenue and margins can grow faster than AI infrastructure spending. My hierarchy: 1. Cloud gro

Michael Burry exiting Alibaba to rotate into JD.com highlights valid concerns over return on invested capital, as a 75% profit plunge driven by a $10.2B equity dilution and a 75% spike in quarterly capex ($9.98B) creates severe near-term margin friction. However, the CEO’s ~$4.98M insider purchase—combined with cloud revenue accelerating to 45% growth and AI product revenue delivering triple-digit gains—proves that AI infrastructure spending is an essential entry ticket to cloud reacceleration rather than a permanent drag. With 40%+ cloud growth and expanding segment EBITA margins (12%), waiting for post-earnings clarity will likely confirm that Alibaba’s short-term margin compression is laying the structural foundation for long-term cloud dominance.