Alibaba: Munger Is Not The Thesis

Seeking Alpha2022-04-18

SummaryRecently the Daily Journal's 13F revealed that the company trimmed its Alibaba position by 50%.It isn't necessarily the case that former Chairman Charlie Munger sold due to weakening conviction...

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Comment（23）

Jess261
·2022-04-19
Okay
Reply
2
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Gutsoverfear
·2022-04-18
cool
Reply
1
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Divihungry
·2022-04-18
Just long baba and dca when opportunities arise.
Reply
1
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BlueBear
·2022-04-18
Dont follow blindly
Reply
1
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SanWangtikup
·2022-04-18
[Duh]
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1
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SmartHunter
·2022-04-18
Daym. Baba is forever
Reply
4
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Jaden994
·2022-04-18
Pls like
Reply
2
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Zarkness
·2022-04-18
I agree with this unbiased article!! Share!!
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1
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LimLS
·2022-04-18
The hype on China huge growing market, the excellent BABA balance sheet and growth, cheapness of BABA against the like of similar competitors like Amazon, etc etc, all these have being talked about when BABA dropped to the low 200s. Everyone is screaming for a buy for such a "good" business at such "attractive" buy. Nothing much had changed in term of the size of China market, excellent balance sheet of BABA, but its price had dropped another 50% to the low 100s. So what's wrong? We do not know why Munger had sold. Maybe he just knew something that we don't. People played up the news when Munger bought BABA and said it's a boost to BABA. When Munger sold, the same people try to downplay the news. Shameful.
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8
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US_watchlist
·2022-04-18
Please like and comment. Thanks
Reply
3
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haoren
·2022-04-18
Nice
Reply
3
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JM85
·2022-04-18
Its price now looks like more than 50% discount! 😉
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6
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Tiyenger
·2022-04-18
HODL
Reply
2
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boomer9595
·2022-04-18
Hope it still a good stock to own
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3
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CTSM
·2022-04-18
Thanks for the read
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2
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JeJu
·2022-04-18
Ok
Reply
2
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SCLIEW
·2022-04-18
666
Reply
1
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Aivern
·2022-04-18
Copy trades are a terrible way to invest. You'd do better DCAing the s&p500.As for company fundamentals, nobody is disputing that at all.The main issue is the political risk - which can scupper they company regardless of how sound its balance sheet is.And there is no metric or data-derived analysis that can predict that factor.So why bother when there are so many other fantastic opportunities?
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7
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Garry Singh
·2022-04-18
Those people taking losses from Alibaba willdefinitely regret One day. It just covid policies In china which making this kind of company tanked. But deep down we all know covid ain't goingto stay forever.
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5
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股勇者
·2022-04-18
Thanks
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3
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In its Q1 13F, the Daily Journal Corp (DJCO) revealed that it had sold 50% of its stake in the Chinese tech company, after several quarters of averaging down. It wasn’t immediately clear whether Munger himself made the decision to sell the shares, as he had stepped down just days before the end of the quarter. Tu To was elected to serve as the company’s CFO on March 22. She signed all of the company’s SEC filings from the 22nd onward.There are many reasons why Munger (or somebody else) might have chosen to sell Alibaba. Not all of them necessarily reflect lower conviction in the stock. It’s possible that DJCO converted some of its NYSE shares to Hong Kong shares, or sold to cover a margin loan. Munger hasn’t spoken on the matter publicly yet, nor have any other DJCO officers, so we don’t know.Charlie Munger is thought to have influenced many investors who bought BABA stock in 2021. He began buying the stock around $226, averaging down after that. Many other investors made similar moves. It was shortly after Munger’s first 13F featuring Alibaba that internet communities focused on BABA really started to take off. Some were founded just days after the release.Naturally, Munger’s apparent sale made a big splash. BABA has always been at least partially a Munger clone trade, and it appears that Munger’s conviction in the stock has diminished. Shortly after the 13F was released, investors took to Twitter offering opinions and running polls asking others about what had happened.We may never know. But it doesn’t matter, because BABA ceased being a Munger clone trade long before the 13F came out. When Munger stepped down as Chairman of the Daily Journal, it created ambiguity as to the actual level of influence he will exercise over the firm’s portfolio going forward. The DJCO portfolio is no longer a Munger portfolio–or at least, not 100% a Munger portfolio. For this reason, investors will need a better thesis than “clone Munger because he is good.” In this article, I will attempt to advance such a thesis, based on valuation, competitive position and China's economic growth. First, though, let’s examine why it will not be possible to clone “Munger’s” BABA trades in future quarters.Why Munger Can’t be Cloned AnymoreThere are two reasons why it is impossible to clone Munger’s future BABA trades:Munger is no longer Chairman of the Daily Journal.Some of DJCO’s potential trades are impossible to confirm.The first of these is easy enough to explain. When Munger was Chairman of the Daily Journal, he managed the investment portfolio. Now that he is no longer Chairman, he simply has the duties of a director. Munger could still volunteer to manage the portfolio, but the ultimate decisions would fall on Steven Myhill-Jones, the new CEO, or Tu To, the new CFO. The SEC filings announcing these new hires didn't say who'd manage the portfolio.The second reason why Munger can’t be cloned now is because some of his potential trades wouldn’t have to be disclosed. Munger is well known for not telling investors more than he has to. If he simply converted some of his NYSE ADRs to Hong Kong shares, as some think he did, then he is no longer under the obligation to report all of his holdings. As the SEC website states, you don’t have to disclose foreign listed shares in a 13F, even if your position is massive.What all this means is that cloning Munger’s BABA trades won’t be possible going forward. For those whose BABA position was little more than a Munger copycat, that has got to sting. Fortunately, the fundamentals-based thesis on the stock is not that difficult to comprehend, and can be explained in terms of four basic principles. In the next section I will explain that case in detail.The Bullish Thesis on BABAA strong bullish thesis on BABA can be built on four pillars:China’s economy.BABA’s competitive position.Financial health.Valuation.I’ll look at each of these factors one by one, starting with China’s economyChina’s EconomyDespite the negative headlines you’re seeing these days, China’s economy is very strong. Its GDP growth was 8.1% in 2021. GDP has grown at 7.4% CAGR over 10 years. In 2020, when many countries entered recessions, China’s growth merely decelerated to 2.2%. With all of this growth, you might think that China is pumping itself full of debt. But think again! At 66.8, China’s government debt as a percentage of GDP is lower than that of the U.S., Canada, and the Eurozone. You may have heard stories about China’s “debt problem,” and claims of a 250% debt to GDP ratio. The figure is correct but it includes all debt, government and private. China’s government debt–the kind used to pay for fiscal stimulus–is low as a percentage of GDP. So China is growing very quickly and is fiscally sound enough to stimulate its economy should stimulation become necessary.BABA’s Competitive PositionAs we’ve seen, China has a high growth economy–the kind of economy that a company wants to operate in. That’s a great start but we still need to know about BABA’s competitive position.As an eCommerce company, BABA has few rivals of similar scale. JD.com (JD) technically does more revenue than BABA does, but it has much smaller margins. It could beat Alibaba on scale but probably not on profitability. JD holds and sells inventory. It’s hard to beat a “platform” company like BABA when you have inventory costs. It eats into margins.Pinduoduo (PDD) has been cited as a potential competitor to BABA but there’s just not much evidence of PDD moving beyond agricultural goods. Its group buying model has proven popular in China, but until it moves into other verticals, it’s not competing with huge chunks of Alibaba’s business.Tencent (OTCPK:TCEHY) competes with BABA in one limited way: it has a payment app. The Chinese government forced BABA and Tencent to accept each other’s payment apps last year. So the competition between these two companies for share of payments has indeed increased.BABA’s FinancialsAlibaba’s long-term financials are excellent. The most recent calendar year was a bit of a departure from the long term trend, but that could turn around.According to Seeking Alpha Quant, BABA’s five year CAGR growth rates in revenue, earnings and cash flows are:Revenue: 42%.Net income: 11.3%.Diluted EPS: 9.8%.Free cash flow: 13.66%.These are pretty solid metrics. They were all much higher prior to this year, but the 2021 Chinese tech crackdown caused last year’s numbers to suffer. BABA did take some new costs in 2021, like a $2.8 billion fine and a higher tax rate. However, the fine was non-recurring and the higher tax rate could be “outgrown” with enough quarters of strong revenue gains.At any rate, Alibaba has more than enough financial strength to ride out a few lacklustre quarters. Its balance sheet is one of the strongest in the world, boasting eye-popping metrics like:$276 billion in assets.$100 billion in liabilities.$176 billion in equity.$45 billion in cash.About $20 billion in debt (calculated from $5.09 billion in bonds $14.85 billion in long term bank loans).$105 billion in current assets.$64 billion in current liabilities.A 0.2 debt to equity ratio.A 1.64 current ratio.So we have debt that is very low as a proportion of shareholder equity, and high liquidity. Even BABA’s cash and equivalents outstrip its long term debt! This suggests a very solid balance sheet and a second-to-none ability to ride out a crisis.ValuationValuation has always been one of the pillars on which the BABA bull case has rested. BABA stock is very cheap by almost every multiple you can think of. Some of its most encouraging value metrics include:Adjusted P/E: 11.Price/sales: 1.96.Price/book: 1.67.Price/operating cash flow: 9.37.All of these multiples are comparatively low for the tech sector. For comparison, Amazon (AMZN), the closest comparable U.S. company, has a 46 adjusted P/E ratio.BABA’s GAAP P/E ratio (25) is a little high, but the most recent quarter included large unrealized losses on the company’s stock portfolio. Adjusted earnings and cash from operations are more closely related to the company’s operating performance, and not surprisingly, they were much higher than GAAP earnings. This isn’t just selective choice of non-GAAP measures either: operating cash flow is a GAAP metric and Alibaba reports in accordance with U.S. GAAP.As we’ve seen, Alibaba is cheap, profitable, and has high historical growth. Certainly this stock has many things to recommend it, even after Charlie Munger rode off into the sunset. However, there are still risks and challenges to the bullish thesis on Alibaba stock. These are real risks that investors will need to keep in mind. But on balance, Alibaba looks like a solid value play today. It’s still growing its revenue, its cloud business is inching toward profitability, and its valuation is cheaper than ever before. On the whole, it looks like a sweet deal – with or without Munger on board.","kind":null,"is_publish_news":true,"is_publish_highlight":true,"is_publish_live":null,"is_publish_wemedia":null,"editions":null,"column":"","sentiment":"","news_tag":"","news_rank":0,"symbols":[],"gpt_button":1},"commentList":[{"id":9088111857,"gmtCreate":1650325185731,"gmtModify":1676534694947,"author":{"id":"3586490638953193","authorId":"3586490638953193","name":"Jess261","avatar":"https://static.laohu8.com/default-avatar.jpg","vip":1,"crmLevel":3,"crmLevelSwitch":0},"htmlText":"Okay","listText":"Okay","text":"Okay","images":[],"top":1,"highlighted":1,"essential":1,"paper":1,"likeSize":2,"commentSize":0,"repostSize":0,"link":"https://ttm.financial/post/9088111857","repostId":1110595663,"repostType":4,"repost":{"id":"1110595663","pubTimestamp":1650258996,"share":"https://www.laohu8.com/m/news/1110595663?lang=&edition=full","pubTime":"2022-04-18 13:16","market":"us","language":"en","title":"Alibaba: Munger Is Not The Thesis","url":"https://stock-news.laohu8.com/highlight/detail?id=1110595663","media":"Seeking Alpha","summary":"SummaryRecently the Daily Journal's 13F revealed that the company trimmed its Alibaba position by 50%.It isn't necessarily the case that former Chairman Charlie Munger sold due to weakening conviction","content":"<html><head></head><body><p>Summary</p><ul><li>Recently the Daily Journal&#39;s 13F revealed that the company trimmed its Alibaba position by 50%.</li><li>It isn&#39;t necessarily the case that former Chairman Charlie Munger sold due to weakening conviction on BABA stock itself.</li><li>However, Munger IS out of the picture in one very real way: he is no longer the Daily Journal&#39;s Chairman.</li><li>For this reason, Alibaba can no longer be considered a Munger copy trade.</li><li>In this article, I develop a fundamentals-based thesis for those who cloned Munger and now aren&#39;t sure what to do.</li></ul><p>Charlie Munger’s Alibaba Group (NYSE:BABA) investment was the talk of the town last week. In its Q1 13F, the Daily Journal Corp (DJCO) revealed that it had sold 50% of its stake in the Chinese tech company, after several quarters of averaging down. It wasn’t immediately clear whether Munger himself made the decision to sell the shares, as he had stepped down just days before the end of the quarter. Tu To was elected to serve as the company’s CFO on March 22. She signed all of the company’s SEC filings from the 22nd onward.</p><p>There are many reasons why Munger (or somebody else) might have chosen to sell Alibaba. Not all of them necessarily reflect lower conviction in the stock. It’s possible that DJCO converted some of its NYSE shares to Hong Kong shares, or sold to cover a margin loan. Munger hasn’t spoken on the matter publicly yet, nor have any other DJCO officers, so we don’t know.</p><p>Charlie Munger is thought to have influenced many investors who bought BABA stock in 2021. He began buying the stock around $226, averaging down after that. Many other investors made similar moves. It was shortly after Munger’s first 13F featuring Alibaba that internet communities focused on BABA really started to take off. Some were founded just days after the release.</p><p>Naturally, Munger’s apparent sale made a big splash. BABA has always been at least partially a Munger clone trade, and it appears that Munger’s conviction in the stock has diminished. Shortly after the 13F was released, investors took to Twitter offering opinions and running polls asking others about what had happened.</p><p>We may never know. But it doesn’t matter, because BABA ceased being a Munger clone trade long before the 13F came out. When Munger stepped down as Chairman of the Daily Journal, it created ambiguity as to the actual level of influence he will exercise over the firm’s portfolio going forward. The DJCO portfolio is no longer a Munger portfolio–or at least, not 100% a Munger portfolio. For this reason, investors will need a better thesis than “clone Munger because he is good.” In this article, I will attempt to advance such a thesis, based on valuation, competitive position and China&#39;s economic growth. First, though, let’s examine why it will not be possible to clone “Munger’s” BABA trades in future quarters.</p><p>Why Munger Can’t be Cloned Anymore</p><p>There are two reasons why it is impossible to clone Munger’s future BABA trades:</p><ol><li>Munger is no longer Chairman of the Daily Journal.</li><li>Some of DJCO’s potential trades are impossible to confirm.</li></ol><p>The first of these is easy enough to explain. When Munger was Chairman of the Daily Journal, he managed the investment portfolio. Now that he is no longer Chairman, he simply has the duties of a director. Munger could still volunteer to manage the portfolio, but the ultimate decisions would fall on Steven Myhill-Jones, the new CEO, or Tu To, the new CFO. The SEC filings announcing these new hires didn&#39;t say who&#39;d manage the portfolio.</p><p>The second reason why Munger can’t be cloned now is because some of his potential trades wouldn’t have to be disclosed. Munger is well known for not telling investors more than he has to. If he simply converted some of his NYSE ADRs to Hong Kong shares, as some think he did, then he is no longer under the obligation to report all of his holdings. As the SEC website states, you don’t have to disclose foreign listed shares in a 13F, even if your position is massive.</p><p><img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/5852b29d02869d997a4c8ce719caa59f\" tg-width=\"575\" tg-height=\"191\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\" width=\"100%\" height=\"auto\"/></p><p>What all this means is that cloning Munger’s BABA trades won’t be possible going forward. For those whose BABA position was little more than a Munger copycat, that has got to sting. Fortunately, the fundamentals-based thesis on the stock is not that difficult to comprehend, and can be explained in terms of four basic principles. In the next section I will explain that case in detail.</p><h2>The Bullish Thesis on BABA</h2><p>A strong bullish thesis on BABA can be built on four pillars:</p><ul><li>China’s economy.</li><li>BABA’s competitive position.</li><li>Financial health.</li><li>Valuation.</li></ul><p>I’ll look at each of these factors one by one, starting with China’s economy</p><h2>China’s Economy</h2><p>Despite the negative headlines you’re seeing these days, China’s economy is very strong. Its GDP growth was 8.1% in 2021. GDP has grown at 7.4% CAGR over 10 years. In 2020, when many countries entered recessions, China’s growth merely decelerated to 2.2%. With all of this growth, you might think that China is pumping itself full of debt. But think again! At 66.8, China’s government debt as a percentage of GDP is lower than that of the U.S., Canada, and the Eurozone. You may have heard stories about China’s “debt problem,” and claims of a 250% debt to GDP ratio. The figure is correct but it includes all debt, government and private. China’s government debt–the kind used to pay for fiscal stimulus–is low as a percentage of GDP. So China is growing very quickly and is fiscally sound enough to stimulate its economy should stimulation become necessary.</p><h2>BABA’s Competitive Position</h2><p>As we’ve seen, China has a high growth economy–the kind of economy that a company wants to operate in. That’s a great start but we still need to know about BABA’s competitive position.</p><p>As an eCommerce company, BABA has few rivals of similar scale. JD.com (JD) technically does more revenue than BABA does, but it has much smaller margins. It could beat Alibaba on scale but probably not on profitability. JD holds and sells inventory. It’s hard to beat a “platform” company like BABA when you have inventory costs. It eats into margins.</p><p>Pinduoduo (PDD) has been cited as a potential competitor to BABA but there’s just not much evidence of PDD moving beyond agricultural goods. Its group buying model has proven popular in China, but until it moves into other verticals, it’s not competing with huge chunks of Alibaba’s business.</p><p>Tencent (OTCPK:TCEHY) competes with BABA in one limited way: it has a payment app. The Chinese government forced BABA and Tencent to accept each other’s payment apps last year. So the competition between these two companies for share of payments has indeed increased.</p><h2>BABA’s Financials</h2><p>Alibaba’s long-term financials are excellent. The most recent calendar year was a bit of a departure from the long term trend, but that could turn around.</p><p>According to Seeking Alpha Quant, BABA’s five year CAGR growth rates in revenue, earnings and cash flows are:</p><ul><li>Revenue: 42%.</li><li>Net income: 11.3%.</li><li>Diluted EPS: 9.8%.</li><li>Free cash flow: 13.66%.</li></ul><p>These are pretty solid metrics. They were all much higher prior to this year, but the 2021 Chinese tech crackdown caused last year’s numbers to suffer. BABA did take some new costs in 2021, like a $2.8 billion fine and a higher tax rate. However, the fine was non-recurring and the higher tax rate could be “outgrown” with enough quarters of strong revenue gains.</p><p>At any rate, Alibaba has more than enough financial strength to ride out a few lacklustre quarters. Its balance sheet is one of the strongest in the world, boasting eye-popping metrics like:</p><ul><li>$276 billion in assets.</li><li>$100 billion in liabilities.</li><li>$176 billion in equity.</li><li>$45 billion in cash.</li><li>About $20 billion in debt (calculated from $5.09 billion in bonds $14.85 billion in long term bank loans).</li><li>$105 billion in current assets.</li><li>$64 billion in current liabilities.</li><li>A 0.2 debt to equity ratio.</li><li>A 1.64 current ratio.</li></ul><p>So we have debt that is very low as a proportion of shareholder equity, and high liquidity. Even BABA’s cash and equivalents outstrip its long term debt! This suggests a very solid balance sheet and a second-to-none ability to ride out a crisis.</p><h2>Valuation</h2><p>Valuation has always been one of the pillars on which the BABA bull case has rested. BABA stock is very cheap by almost every multiple you can think of. Some of its most encouraging value metrics include:</p><ul><li>Adjusted P/E: 11.</li><li>Price/sales: 1.96.</li><li>Price/book: 1.67.</li><li>Price/operating cash flow: 9.37.</li></ul><p>All of these multiples are comparatively low for the tech sector. For comparison, Amazon (AMZN), the closest comparable U.S. company, has a 46 adjusted P/E ratio.</p><p>BABA’s GAAP P/E ratio (25) is a little high, but the most recent quarter included large unrealized losses on the company’s stock portfolio. Adjusted earnings and cash from operations are more closely related to the company’s operating performance, and not surprisingly, they were much higher than GAAP earnings. This isn’t just selective choice of non-GAAP measures either: operating cash flow is a GAAP metric and Alibaba reports in accordance with U.S. GAAP.</p><p>As we’ve seen, Alibaba is cheap, profitable, and has high historical growth. Certainly this stock has many things to recommend it, even after Charlie Munger rode off into the sunset. However, there are still risks and challenges to the bullish thesis on Alibaba stock. </p><p>These are real risks that investors will need to keep in mind. But on balance, Alibaba looks like a solid value play today. It’s still growing its revenue, its cloud business is inching toward profitability, and its valuation is cheaper than ever before. On the whole, it looks like a sweet deal – with or without Munger on board.</p></body></html>","collect":0,"html":"<!DOCTYPE html>\n<html>\n<head>\n<meta http-equiv=\"Content-Type\" content=\"text/html; charset=utf-8\" />\n<meta name=\"viewport\" content=\"width=device-width,initial-scale=1.0,minimum-scale=1.0,maximum-scale=1.0,user-scalable=no\"/>\n<meta name=\"format-detection\" content=\"telephone=no,email=no,address=no\" />\n<title>Alibaba: Munger Is Not The Thesis</title>\n<style type=\"text/css\">\na,abbr,acronym,address,applet,article,aside,audio,b,big,blockquote,body,canvas,caption,center,cite,code,dd,del,details,dfn,div,dl,dt,\nem,embed,fieldset,figcaption,figure,footer,form,h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6,header,hgroup,html,i,iframe,img,ins,kbd,label,legend,li,mark,menu,nav,\nobject,ol,output,p,pre,q,ruby,s,samp,section,small,span,strike,strong,sub,summary,sup,table,tbody,td,tfoot,th,thead,time,tr,tt,u,ul,var,video{ font:inherit;margin:0;padding:0;vertical-align:baseline;border:0 }\nbody{ font-size:16px; line-height:1.5; color:#999; background:transparent; }\n.wrapper{ overflow:hidden;word-break:break-all;padding:10px; }\nh1,h2{ font-weight:normal; line-height:1.35; margin-bottom:.6em; }\nh3,h4,h5,h6{ line-height:1.35; margin-bottom:1em; }\nh1{ font-size:24px; }\nh2{ font-size:20px; }\nh3{ font-size:18px; }\nh4{ font-size:16px; }\nh5{ font-size:14px; }\nh6{ font-size:12px; }\np,ul,ol,blockquote,dl,table{ margin:1.2em 0; }\nul,ol{ margin-left:2em; }\nul{ list-style:disc; }\nol{ list-style:decimal; }\nli,li p{ margin:10px 0;}\nimg{ max-width:100%;display:block;margin:0 auto 1em; }\nblockquote{ color:#B5B2B1; border-left:3px solid #aaa; padding:1em; }\nstrong,b{font-weight:bold;}\nem,i{font-style:italic;}\ntable{ width:100%;border-collapse:collapse;border-spacing:1px;margin:1em 0;font-size:.9em; }\nth,td{ padding:5px;text-align:left;border:1px solid #aaa; }\nth{ font-weight:bold;background:#5d5d5d; }\n.symbol-link{font-weight:bold;}\n/* header{ border-bottom:1px solid #494756; } */\n.title{ margin:0 0 8px;line-height:1.3;color:#ddd; }\n.meta {color:#5e5c6d;font-size:13px;margin:0 0 .5em; }\na{text-decoration:none; color:#2a4b87;}\n.meta .head { display: inline-block; overflow: hidden}\n.head .h-thumb { width: 30px; height: 30px; margin: 0; padding: 0; border-radius: 50%; float: left;}\n.head .h-content { margin: 0; padding: 0 0 0 9px; float: left;}\n.head .h-name {font-size: 13px; color: #eee; margin: 0;}\n.head .h-time {font-size: 11px; color: #7E829C; margin: 0;line-height: 11px;}\n.small {font-size: 12.5px; display: inline-block; transform: scale(0.9); -webkit-transform: scale(0.9); transform-origin: left; -webkit-transform-origin: left;}\n.smaller {font-size: 12.5px; display: inline-block; transform: scale(0.8); -webkit-transform: scale(0.8); transform-origin: left; -webkit-transform-origin: left;}\n.bt-text {font-size: 12px;margin: 1.5em 0 0 0}\n.bt-text p {margin: 0}\n</style>\n</head>\n<body>\n<div class=\"wrapper\">\n<header>\n<h2 class=\"title\">\nAlibaba: Munger Is Not The Thesis\n</h2>\n\n<h4 class=\"meta\">\n\n\n2022-04-18 13:16 GMT+8&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href=https://seekingalpha.com/article/4501707-alibaba-munger-not-thesis><strong>Seeking Alpha</strong></a>\n\n\n</h4>\n\n</header>\n<article>\n<div>\n<p>SummaryRecently the Daily Journal's 13F revealed that the company trimmed its Alibaba position by 50%.It isn't necessarily the case that former Chairman Charlie Munger sold due to weakening conviction...</p>\n\n<a href=\"https://seekingalpha.com/article/4501707-alibaba-munger-not-thesis\">Web Link</a>\n\n</div>\n\n\n</article>\n</div>\n</body>\n</html>\n","type":0,"thumbnail":"","relate_stocks":{"BABA":"阿里巴巴"},"source_url":"https://seekingalpha.com/article/4501707-alibaba-munger-not-thesis","is_english":true,"share_image_url":"https://static.laohu8.com/e9f99090a1c2ed51c021029395664489","article_id":"1110595663","content_text":"SummaryRecently the Daily Journal's 13F revealed that the company trimmed its Alibaba position by 50%.It isn't necessarily the case that former Chairman Charlie Munger sold due to weakening conviction on BABA stock itself.However, Munger IS out of the picture in one very real way: he is no longer the Daily Journal's Chairman.For this reason, Alibaba can no longer be considered a Munger copy trade.In this article, I develop a fundamentals-based thesis for those who cloned Munger and now aren't sure what to do.Charlie Munger’s Alibaba Group (NYSE:BABA) investment was the talk of the town last week. In its Q1 13F, the Daily Journal Corp (DJCO) revealed that it had sold 50% of its stake in the Chinese tech company, after several quarters of averaging down. It wasn’t immediately clear whether Munger himself made the decision to sell the shares, as he had stepped down just days before the end of the quarter. Tu To was elected to serve as the company’s CFO on March 22. She signed all of the company’s SEC filings from the 22nd onward.There are many reasons why Munger (or somebody else) might have chosen to sell Alibaba. Not all of them necessarily reflect lower conviction in the stock. It’s possible that DJCO converted some of its NYSE shares to Hong Kong shares, or sold to cover a margin loan. Munger hasn’t spoken on the matter publicly yet, nor have any other DJCO officers, so we don’t know.Charlie Munger is thought to have influenced many investors who bought BABA stock in 2021. He began buying the stock around $226, averaging down after that. Many other investors made similar moves. It was shortly after Munger’s first 13F featuring Alibaba that internet communities focused on BABA really started to take off. Some were founded just days after the release.Naturally, Munger’s apparent sale made a big splash. BABA has always been at least partially a Munger clone trade, and it appears that Munger’s conviction in the stock has diminished. Shortly after the 13F was released, investors took to Twitter offering opinions and running polls asking others about what had happened.We may never know. But it doesn’t matter, because BABA ceased being a Munger clone trade long before the 13F came out. When Munger stepped down as Chairman of the Daily Journal, it created ambiguity as to the actual level of influence he will exercise over the firm’s portfolio going forward. The DJCO portfolio is no longer a Munger portfolio–or at least, not 100% a Munger portfolio. For this reason, investors will need a better thesis than “clone Munger because he is good.” In this article, I will attempt to advance such a thesis, based on valuation, competitive position and China's economic growth. First, though, let’s examine why it will not be possible to clone “Munger’s” BABA trades in future quarters.Why Munger Can’t be Cloned AnymoreThere are two reasons why it is impossible to clone Munger’s future BABA trades:Munger is no longer Chairman of the Daily Journal.Some of DJCO’s potential trades are impossible to confirm.The first of these is easy enough to explain. When Munger was Chairman of the Daily Journal, he managed the investment portfolio. Now that he is no longer Chairman, he simply has the duties of a director. Munger could still volunteer to manage the portfolio, but the ultimate decisions would fall on Steven Myhill-Jones, the new CEO, or Tu To, the new CFO. The SEC filings announcing these new hires didn't say who'd manage the portfolio.The second reason why Munger can’t be cloned now is because some of his potential trades wouldn’t have to be disclosed. Munger is well known for not telling investors more than he has to. If he simply converted some of his NYSE ADRs to Hong Kong shares, as some think he did, then he is no longer under the obligation to report all of his holdings. As the SEC website states, you don’t have to disclose foreign listed shares in a 13F, even if your position is massive.What all this means is that cloning Munger’s BABA trades won’t be possible going forward. For those whose BABA position was little more than a Munger copycat, that has got to sting. Fortunately, the fundamentals-based thesis on the stock is not that difficult to comprehend, and can be explained in terms of four basic principles. In the next section I will explain that case in detail.The Bullish Thesis on BABAA strong bullish thesis on BABA can be built on four pillars:China’s economy.BABA’s competitive position.Financial health.Valuation.I’ll look at each of these factors one by one, starting with China’s economyChina’s EconomyDespite the negative headlines you’re seeing these days, China’s economy is very strong. Its GDP growth was 8.1% in 2021. GDP has grown at 7.4% CAGR over 10 years. In 2020, when many countries entered recessions, China’s growth merely decelerated to 2.2%. With all of this growth, you might think that China is pumping itself full of debt. But think again! At 66.8, China’s government debt as a percentage of GDP is lower than that of the U.S., Canada, and the Eurozone. You may have heard stories about China’s “debt problem,” and claims of a 250% debt to GDP ratio. The figure is correct but it includes all debt, government and private. China’s government debt–the kind used to pay for fiscal stimulus–is low as a percentage of GDP. So China is growing very quickly and is fiscally sound enough to stimulate its economy should stimulation become necessary.BABA’s Competitive PositionAs we’ve seen, China has a high growth economy–the kind of economy that a company wants to operate in. That’s a great start but we still need to know about BABA’s competitive position.As an eCommerce company, BABA has few rivals of similar scale. JD.com (JD) technically does more revenue than BABA does, but it has much smaller margins. It could beat Alibaba on scale but probably not on profitability. JD holds and sells inventory. It’s hard to beat a “platform” company like BABA when you have inventory costs. It eats into margins.Pinduoduo (PDD) has been cited as a potential competitor to BABA but there’s just not much evidence of PDD moving beyond agricultural goods. Its group buying model has proven popular in China, but until it moves into other verticals, it’s not competing with huge chunks of Alibaba’s business.Tencent (OTCPK:TCEHY) competes with BABA in one limited way: it has a payment app. The Chinese government forced BABA and Tencent to accept each other’s payment apps last year. So the competition between these two companies for share of payments has indeed increased.BABA’s FinancialsAlibaba’s long-term financials are excellent. The most recent calendar year was a bit of a departure from the long term trend, but that could turn around.According to Seeking Alpha Quant, BABA’s five year CAGR growth rates in revenue, earnings and cash flows are:Revenue: 42%.Net income: 11.3%.Diluted EPS: 9.8%.Free cash flow: 13.66%.These are pretty solid metrics. They were all much higher prior to this year, but the 2021 Chinese tech crackdown caused last year’s numbers to suffer. BABA did take some new costs in 2021, like a $2.8 billion fine and a higher tax rate. However, the fine was non-recurring and the higher tax rate could be “outgrown” with enough quarters of strong revenue gains.At any rate, Alibaba has more than enough financial strength to ride out a few lacklustre quarters. Its balance sheet is one of the strongest in the world, boasting eye-popping metrics like:$276 billion in assets.$100 billion in liabilities.$176 billion in equity.$45 billion in cash.About $20 billion in debt (calculated from $5.09 billion in bonds $14.85 billion in long term bank loans).$105 billion in current assets.$64 billion in current liabilities.A 0.2 debt to equity ratio.A 1.64 current ratio.So we have debt that is very low as a proportion of shareholder equity, and high liquidity. Even BABA’s cash and equivalents outstrip its long term debt! This suggests a very solid balance sheet and a second-to-none ability to ride out a crisis.ValuationValuation has always been one of the pillars on which the BABA bull case has rested. BABA stock is very cheap by almost every multiple you can think of. Some of its most encouraging value metrics include:Adjusted P/E: 11.Price/sales: 1.96.Price/book: 1.67.Price/operating cash flow: 9.37.All of these multiples are comparatively low for the tech sector. For comparison, Amazon (AMZN), the closest comparable U.S. company, has a 46 adjusted P/E ratio.BABA’s GAAP P/E ratio (25) is a little high, but the most recent quarter included large unrealized losses on the company’s stock portfolio. Adjusted earnings and cash from operations are more closely related to the company’s operating performance, and not surprisingly, they were much higher than GAAP earnings. This isn’t just selective choice of non-GAAP measures either: operating cash flow is a GAAP metric and Alibaba reports in accordance with U.S. GAAP.As we’ve seen, Alibaba is cheap, profitable, and has high historical growth. Certainly this stock has many things to recommend it, even after Charlie Munger rode off into the sunset. However, there are still risks and challenges to the bullish thesis on Alibaba stock. These are real risks that investors will need to keep in mind. But on balance, Alibaba looks like a solid value play today. It’s still growing its revenue, its cloud business is inching toward profitability, and its valuation is cheaper than ever before. On the whole, it looks like a sweet deal – with or without Munger on board.","news_type":1},"isVote":1,"likeStatus":false,"favoriteStatus":false,"reportStatus":false,"tweetType":1,"langContent":"EN"},{"id":9081747078,"gmtCreate":1650285639199,"gmtModify":1676534686447,"author":{"id":"3571280864379147","authorId":"3571280864379147","name":"Gutsoverfear","avatar":"https://static.laohu8.com/default-avatar.jpg","vip":1,"crmLevel":2,"crmLevelSwitch":0},"htmlText":"cool","listText":"cool","text":"cool","images":[],"top":1,"highlighted":1,"essential":1,"paper":1,"likeSize":1,"commentSize":0,"repostSize":0,"link":"https://ttm.financial/post/9081747078","repostId":1110595663,"repostType":2,"repost":{"id":"1110595663","pubTimestamp":1650258996,"share":"https://www.laohu8.com/m/news/1110595663?lang=&edition=full","pubTime":"2022-04-18 13:16","market":"us","language":"en","title":"Alibaba: Munger Is Not The Thesis","url":"https://stock-news.laohu8.com/highlight/detail?id=1110595663","media":"Seeking Alpha","summary":"SummaryRecently the Daily Journal's 13F revealed that the company trimmed its Alibaba position by 50%.It isn't necessarily the case that former Chairman Charlie Munger sold due to weakening conviction","content":"<html><head></head><body><p>Summary</p><ul><li>Recently the Daily Journal&#39;s 13F revealed that the company trimmed its Alibaba position by 50%.</li><li>It isn&#39;t necessarily the case that former Chairman Charlie Munger sold due to weakening conviction on BABA stock itself.</li><li>However, Munger IS out of the picture in one very real way: he is no longer the Daily Journal&#39;s Chairman.</li><li>For this reason, Alibaba can no longer be considered a Munger copy trade.</li><li>In this article, I develop a fundamentals-based thesis for those who cloned Munger and now aren&#39;t sure what to do.</li></ul><p>Charlie Munger’s Alibaba Group (NYSE:BABA) investment was the talk of the town last week. In its Q1 13F, the Daily Journal Corp (DJCO) revealed that it had sold 50% of its stake in the Chinese tech company, after several quarters of averaging down. It wasn’t immediately clear whether Munger himself made the decision to sell the shares, as he had stepped down just days before the end of the quarter. Tu To was elected to serve as the company’s CFO on March 22. She signed all of the company’s SEC filings from the 22nd onward.</p><p>There are many reasons why Munger (or somebody else) might have chosen to sell Alibaba. Not all of them necessarily reflect lower conviction in the stock. It’s possible that DJCO converted some of its NYSE shares to Hong Kong shares, or sold to cover a margin loan. Munger hasn’t spoken on the matter publicly yet, nor have any other DJCO officers, so we don’t know.</p><p>Charlie Munger is thought to have influenced many investors who bought BABA stock in 2021. He began buying the stock around $226, averaging down after that. Many other investors made similar moves. It was shortly after Munger’s first 13F featuring Alibaba that internet communities focused on BABA really started to take off. Some were founded just days after the release.</p><p>Naturally, Munger’s apparent sale made a big splash. BABA has always been at least partially a Munger clone trade, and it appears that Munger’s conviction in the stock has diminished. Shortly after the 13F was released, investors took to Twitter offering opinions and running polls asking others about what had happened.</p><p>We may never know. But it doesn’t matter, because BABA ceased being a Munger clone trade long before the 13F came out. When Munger stepped down as Chairman of the Daily Journal, it created ambiguity as to the actual level of influence he will exercise over the firm’s portfolio going forward. The DJCO portfolio is no longer a Munger portfolio–or at least, not 100% a Munger portfolio. For this reason, investors will need a better thesis than “clone Munger because he is good.” In this article, I will attempt to advance such a thesis, based on valuation, competitive position and China&#39;s economic growth. First, though, let’s examine why it will not be possible to clone “Munger’s” BABA trades in future quarters.</p><p>Why Munger Can’t be Cloned Anymore</p><p>There are two reasons why it is impossible to clone Munger’s future BABA trades:</p><ol><li>Munger is no longer Chairman of the Daily Journal.</li><li>Some of DJCO’s potential trades are impossible to confirm.</li></ol><p>The first of these is easy enough to explain. When Munger was Chairman of the Daily Journal, he managed the investment portfolio. Now that he is no longer Chairman, he simply has the duties of a director. Munger could still volunteer to manage the portfolio, but the ultimate decisions would fall on Steven Myhill-Jones, the new CEO, or Tu To, the new CFO. The SEC filings announcing these new hires didn&#39;t say who&#39;d manage the portfolio.</p><p>The second reason why Munger can’t be cloned now is because some of his potential trades wouldn’t have to be disclosed. Munger is well known for not telling investors more than he has to. If he simply converted some of his NYSE ADRs to Hong Kong shares, as some think he did, then he is no longer under the obligation to report all of his holdings. As the SEC website states, you don’t have to disclose foreign listed shares in a 13F, even if your position is massive.</p><p><img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/5852b29d02869d997a4c8ce719caa59f\" tg-width=\"575\" tg-height=\"191\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\" width=\"100%\" height=\"auto\"/></p><p>What all this means is that cloning Munger’s BABA trades won’t be possible going forward. For those whose BABA position was little more than a Munger copycat, that has got to sting. Fortunately, the fundamentals-based thesis on the stock is not that difficult to comprehend, and can be explained in terms of four basic principles. In the next section I will explain that case in detail.</p><h2>The Bullish Thesis on BABA</h2><p>A strong bullish thesis on BABA can be built on four pillars:</p><ul><li>China’s economy.</li><li>BABA’s competitive position.</li><li>Financial health.</li><li>Valuation.</li></ul><p>I’ll look at each of these factors one by one, starting with China’s economy</p><h2>China’s Economy</h2><p>Despite the negative headlines you’re seeing these days, China’s economy is very strong. Its GDP growth was 8.1% in 2021. GDP has grown at 7.4% CAGR over 10 years. In 2020, when many countries entered recessions, China’s growth merely decelerated to 2.2%. With all of this growth, you might think that China is pumping itself full of debt. But think again! At 66.8, China’s government debt as a percentage of GDP is lower than that of the U.S., Canada, and the Eurozone. You may have heard stories about China’s “debt problem,” and claims of a 250% debt to GDP ratio. The figure is correct but it includes all debt, government and private. China’s government debt–the kind used to pay for fiscal stimulus–is low as a percentage of GDP. So China is growing very quickly and is fiscally sound enough to stimulate its economy should stimulation become necessary.</p><h2>BABA’s Competitive Position</h2><p>As we’ve seen, China has a high growth economy–the kind of economy that a company wants to operate in. That’s a great start but we still need to know about BABA’s competitive position.</p><p>As an eCommerce company, BABA has few rivals of similar scale. JD.com (JD) technically does more revenue than BABA does, but it has much smaller margins. It could beat Alibaba on scale but probably not on profitability. JD holds and sells inventory. It’s hard to beat a “platform” company like BABA when you have inventory costs. It eats into margins.</p><p>Pinduoduo (PDD) has been cited as a potential competitor to BABA but there’s just not much evidence of PDD moving beyond agricultural goods. Its group buying model has proven popular in China, but until it moves into other verticals, it’s not competing with huge chunks of Alibaba’s business.</p><p>Tencent (OTCPK:TCEHY) competes with BABA in one limited way: it has a payment app. The Chinese government forced BABA and Tencent to accept each other’s payment apps last year. So the competition between these two companies for share of payments has indeed increased.</p><h2>BABA’s Financials</h2><p>Alibaba’s long-term financials are excellent. The most recent calendar year was a bit of a departure from the long term trend, but that could turn around.</p><p>According to Seeking Alpha Quant, BABA’s five year CAGR growth rates in revenue, earnings and cash flows are:</p><ul><li>Revenue: 42%.</li><li>Net income: 11.3%.</li><li>Diluted EPS: 9.8%.</li><li>Free cash flow: 13.66%.</li></ul><p>These are pretty solid metrics. They were all much higher prior to this year, but the 2021 Chinese tech crackdown caused last year’s numbers to suffer. BABA did take some new costs in 2021, like a $2.8 billion fine and a higher tax rate. However, the fine was non-recurring and the higher tax rate could be “outgrown” with enough quarters of strong revenue gains.</p><p>At any rate, Alibaba has more than enough financial strength to ride out a few lacklustre quarters. Its balance sheet is one of the strongest in the world, boasting eye-popping metrics like:</p><ul><li>$276 billion in assets.</li><li>$100 billion in liabilities.</li><li>$176 billion in equity.</li><li>$45 billion in cash.</li><li>About $20 billion in debt (calculated from $5.09 billion in bonds $14.85 billion in long term bank loans).</li><li>$105 billion in current assets.</li><li>$64 billion in current liabilities.</li><li>A 0.2 debt to equity ratio.</li><li>A 1.64 current ratio.</li></ul><p>So we have debt that is very low as a proportion of shareholder equity, and high liquidity. Even BABA’s cash and equivalents outstrip its long term debt! This suggests a very solid balance sheet and a second-to-none ability to ride out a crisis.</p><h2>Valuation</h2><p>Valuation has always been one of the pillars on which the BABA bull case has rested. BABA stock is very cheap by almost every multiple you can think of. Some of its most encouraging value metrics include:</p><ul><li>Adjusted P/E: 11.</li><li>Price/sales: 1.96.</li><li>Price/book: 1.67.</li><li>Price/operating cash flow: 9.37.</li></ul><p>All of these multiples are comparatively low for the tech sector. For comparison, Amazon (AMZN), the closest comparable U.S. company, has a 46 adjusted P/E ratio.</p><p>BABA’s GAAP P/E ratio (25) is a little high, but the most recent quarter included large unrealized losses on the company’s stock portfolio. Adjusted earnings and cash from operations are more closely related to the company’s operating performance, and not surprisingly, they were much higher than GAAP earnings. This isn’t just selective choice of non-GAAP measures either: operating cash flow is a GAAP metric and Alibaba reports in accordance with U.S. GAAP.</p><p>As we’ve seen, Alibaba is cheap, profitable, and has high historical growth. Certainly this stock has many things to recommend it, even after Charlie Munger rode off into the sunset. However, there are still risks and challenges to the bullish thesis on Alibaba stock. </p><p>These are real risks that investors will need to keep in mind. But on balance, Alibaba looks like a solid value play today. It’s still growing its revenue, its cloud business is inching toward profitability, and its valuation is cheaper than ever before. On the whole, it looks like a sweet deal – with or without Munger on board.</p></body></html>","collect":0,"html":"<!DOCTYPE html>\n<html>\n<head>\n<meta http-equiv=\"Content-Type\" content=\"text/html; charset=utf-8\" />\n<meta name=\"viewport\" content=\"width=device-width,initial-scale=1.0,minimum-scale=1.0,maximum-scale=1.0,user-scalable=no\"/>\n<meta name=\"format-detection\" content=\"telephone=no,email=no,address=no\" />\n<title>Alibaba: Munger Is Not The Thesis</title>\n<style type=\"text/css\">\na,abbr,acronym,address,applet,article,aside,audio,b,big,blockquote,body,canvas,caption,center,cite,code,dd,del,details,dfn,div,dl,dt,\nem,embed,fieldset,figcaption,figure,footer,form,h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6,header,hgroup,html,i,iframe,img,ins,kbd,label,legend,li,mark,menu,nav,\nobject,ol,output,p,pre,q,ruby,s,samp,section,small,span,strike,strong,sub,summary,sup,table,tbody,td,tfoot,th,thead,time,tr,tt,u,ul,var,video{ font:inherit;margin:0;padding:0;vertical-align:baseline;border:0 }\nbody{ font-size:16px; line-height:1.5; color:#999; background:transparent; }\n.wrapper{ overflow:hidden;word-break:break-all;padding:10px; }\nh1,h2{ font-weight:normal; line-height:1.35; margin-bottom:.6em; }\nh3,h4,h5,h6{ line-height:1.35; margin-bottom:1em; }\nh1{ font-size:24px; }\nh2{ font-size:20px; }\nh3{ font-size:18px; }\nh4{ font-size:16px; }\nh5{ font-size:14px; }\nh6{ font-size:12px; }\np,ul,ol,blockquote,dl,table{ margin:1.2em 0; }\nul,ol{ margin-left:2em; }\nul{ list-style:disc; }\nol{ list-style:decimal; }\nli,li p{ margin:10px 0;}\nimg{ max-width:100%;display:block;margin:0 auto 1em; }\nblockquote{ color:#B5B2B1; border-left:3px solid #aaa; padding:1em; }\nstrong,b{font-weight:bold;}\nem,i{font-style:italic;}\ntable{ width:100%;border-collapse:collapse;border-spacing:1px;margin:1em 0;font-size:.9em; }\nth,td{ padding:5px;text-align:left;border:1px solid #aaa; }\nth{ font-weight:bold;background:#5d5d5d; }\n.symbol-link{font-weight:bold;}\n/* header{ border-bottom:1px solid #494756; } */\n.title{ margin:0 0 8px;line-height:1.3;color:#ddd; }\n.meta {color:#5e5c6d;font-size:13px;margin:0 0 .5em; }\na{text-decoration:none; color:#2a4b87;}\n.meta .head { display: inline-block; overflow: hidden}\n.head .h-thumb { width: 30px; height: 30px; margin: 0; padding: 0; border-radius: 50%; float: left;}\n.head .h-content { margin: 0; padding: 0 0 0 9px; float: left;}\n.head .h-name {font-size: 13px; color: #eee; margin: 0;}\n.head .h-time {font-size: 11px; color: #7E829C; margin: 0;line-height: 11px;}\n.small {font-size: 12.5px; display: inline-block; transform: scale(0.9); -webkit-transform: scale(0.9); transform-origin: left; -webkit-transform-origin: left;}\n.smaller {font-size: 12.5px; display: inline-block; transform: scale(0.8); -webkit-transform: scale(0.8); transform-origin: left; -webkit-transform-origin: left;}\n.bt-text {font-size: 12px;margin: 1.5em 0 0 0}\n.bt-text p {margin: 0}\n</style>\n</head>\n<body>\n<div class=\"wrapper\">\n<header>\n<h2 class=\"title\">\nAlibaba: Munger Is Not The Thesis\n</h2>\n\n<h4 class=\"meta\">\n\n\n2022-04-18 13:16 GMT+8&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href=https://seekingalpha.com/article/4501707-alibaba-munger-not-thesis><strong>Seeking Alpha</strong></a>\n\n\n</h4>\n\n</header>\n<article>\n<div>\n<p>SummaryRecently the Daily Journal's 13F revealed that the company trimmed its Alibaba position by 50%.It isn't necessarily the case that former Chairman Charlie Munger sold due to weakening conviction...</p>\n\n<a href=\"https://seekingalpha.com/article/4501707-alibaba-munger-not-thesis\">Web Link</a>\n\n</div>\n\n\n</article>\n</div>\n</body>\n</html>\n","type":0,"thumbnail":"","relate_stocks":{"BABA":"阿里巴巴"},"source_url":"https://seekingalpha.com/article/4501707-alibaba-munger-not-thesis","is_english":true,"share_image_url":"https://static.laohu8.com/e9f99090a1c2ed51c021029395664489","article_id":"1110595663","content_text":"SummaryRecently the Daily Journal's 13F revealed that the company trimmed its Alibaba position by 50%.It isn't necessarily the case that former Chairman Charlie Munger sold due to weakening conviction on BABA stock itself.However, Munger IS out of the picture in one very real way: he is no longer the Daily Journal's Chairman.For this reason, Alibaba can no longer be considered a Munger copy trade.In this article, I develop a fundamentals-based thesis for those who cloned Munger and now aren't sure what to do.Charlie Munger’s Alibaba Group (NYSE:BABA) investment was the talk of the town last week. In its Q1 13F, the Daily Journal Corp (DJCO) revealed that it had sold 50% of its stake in the Chinese tech company, after several quarters of averaging down. It wasn’t immediately clear whether Munger himself made the decision to sell the shares, as he had stepped down just days before the end of the quarter. Tu To was elected to serve as the company’s CFO on March 22. She signed all of the company’s SEC filings from the 22nd onward.There are many reasons why Munger (or somebody else) might have chosen to sell Alibaba. Not all of them necessarily reflect lower conviction in the stock. It’s possible that DJCO converted some of its NYSE shares to Hong Kong shares, or sold to cover a margin loan. Munger hasn’t spoken on the matter publicly yet, nor have any other DJCO officers, so we don’t know.Charlie Munger is thought to have influenced many investors who bought BABA stock in 2021. He began buying the stock around $226, averaging down after that. Many other investors made similar moves. It was shortly after Munger’s first 13F featuring Alibaba that internet communities focused on BABA really started to take off. Some were founded just days after the release.Naturally, Munger’s apparent sale made a big splash. BABA has always been at least partially a Munger clone trade, and it appears that Munger’s conviction in the stock has diminished. Shortly after the 13F was released, investors took to Twitter offering opinions and running polls asking others about what had happened.We may never know. But it doesn’t matter, because BABA ceased being a Munger clone trade long before the 13F came out. When Munger stepped down as Chairman of the Daily Journal, it created ambiguity as to the actual level of influence he will exercise over the firm’s portfolio going forward. The DJCO portfolio is no longer a Munger portfolio–or at least, not 100% a Munger portfolio. For this reason, investors will need a better thesis than “clone Munger because he is good.” In this article, I will attempt to advance such a thesis, based on valuation, competitive position and China's economic growth. First, though, let’s examine why it will not be possible to clone “Munger’s” BABA trades in future quarters.Why Munger Can’t be Cloned AnymoreThere are two reasons why it is impossible to clone Munger’s future BABA trades:Munger is no longer Chairman of the Daily Journal.Some of DJCO’s potential trades are impossible to confirm.The first of these is easy enough to explain. When Munger was Chairman of the Daily Journal, he managed the investment portfolio. Now that he is no longer Chairman, he simply has the duties of a director. Munger could still volunteer to manage the portfolio, but the ultimate decisions would fall on Steven Myhill-Jones, the new CEO, or Tu To, the new CFO. The SEC filings announcing these new hires didn't say who'd manage the portfolio.The second reason why Munger can’t be cloned now is because some of his potential trades wouldn’t have to be disclosed. Munger is well known for not telling investors more than he has to. If he simply converted some of his NYSE ADRs to Hong Kong shares, as some think he did, then he is no longer under the obligation to report all of his holdings. As the SEC website states, you don’t have to disclose foreign listed shares in a 13F, even if your position is massive.What all this means is that cloning Munger’s BABA trades won’t be possible going forward. For those whose BABA position was little more than a Munger copycat, that has got to sting. Fortunately, the fundamentals-based thesis on the stock is not that difficult to comprehend, and can be explained in terms of four basic principles. In the next section I will explain that case in detail.The Bullish Thesis on BABAA strong bullish thesis on BABA can be built on four pillars:China’s economy.BABA’s competitive position.Financial health.Valuation.I’ll look at each of these factors one by one, starting with China’s economyChina’s EconomyDespite the negative headlines you’re seeing these days, China’s economy is very strong. Its GDP growth was 8.1% in 2021. GDP has grown at 7.4% CAGR over 10 years. In 2020, when many countries entered recessions, China’s growth merely decelerated to 2.2%. With all of this growth, you might think that China is pumping itself full of debt. But think again! At 66.8, China’s government debt as a percentage of GDP is lower than that of the U.S., Canada, and the Eurozone. You may have heard stories about China’s “debt problem,” and claims of a 250% debt to GDP ratio. The figure is correct but it includes all debt, government and private. China’s government debt–the kind used to pay for fiscal stimulus–is low as a percentage of GDP. So China is growing very quickly and is fiscally sound enough to stimulate its economy should stimulation become necessary.BABA’s Competitive PositionAs we’ve seen, China has a high growth economy–the kind of economy that a company wants to operate in. That’s a great start but we still need to know about BABA’s competitive position.As an eCommerce company, BABA has few rivals of similar scale. JD.com (JD) technically does more revenue than BABA does, but it has much smaller margins. It could beat Alibaba on scale but probably not on profitability. JD holds and sells inventory. It’s hard to beat a “platform” company like BABA when you have inventory costs. It eats into margins.Pinduoduo (PDD) has been cited as a potential competitor to BABA but there’s just not much evidence of PDD moving beyond agricultural goods. Its group buying model has proven popular in China, but until it moves into other verticals, it’s not competing with huge chunks of Alibaba’s business.Tencent (OTCPK:TCEHY) competes with BABA in one limited way: it has a payment app. The Chinese government forced BABA and Tencent to accept each other’s payment apps last year. So the competition between these two companies for share of payments has indeed increased.BABA’s FinancialsAlibaba’s long-term financials are excellent. The most recent calendar year was a bit of a departure from the long term trend, but that could turn around.According to Seeking Alpha Quant, BABA’s five year CAGR growth rates in revenue, earnings and cash flows are:Revenue: 42%.Net income: 11.3%.Diluted EPS: 9.8%.Free cash flow: 13.66%.These are pretty solid metrics. They were all much higher prior to this year, but the 2021 Chinese tech crackdown caused last year’s numbers to suffer. BABA did take some new costs in 2021, like a $2.8 billion fine and a higher tax rate. However, the fine was non-recurring and the higher tax rate could be “outgrown” with enough quarters of strong revenue gains.At any rate, Alibaba has more than enough financial strength to ride out a few lacklustre quarters. Its balance sheet is one of the strongest in the world, boasting eye-popping metrics like:$276 billion in assets.$100 billion in liabilities.$176 billion in equity.$45 billion in cash.About $20 billion in debt (calculated from $5.09 billion in bonds $14.85 billion in long term bank loans).$105 billion in current assets.$64 billion in current liabilities.A 0.2 debt to equity ratio.A 1.64 current ratio.So we have debt that is very low as a proportion of shareholder equity, and high liquidity. Even BABA’s cash and equivalents outstrip its long term debt! This suggests a very solid balance sheet and a second-to-none ability to ride out a crisis.ValuationValuation has always been one of the pillars on which the BABA bull case has rested. BABA stock is very cheap by almost every multiple you can think of. Some of its most encouraging value metrics include:Adjusted P/E: 11.Price/sales: 1.96.Price/book: 1.67.Price/operating cash flow: 9.37.All of these multiples are comparatively low for the tech sector. For comparison, Amazon (AMZN), the closest comparable U.S. company, has a 46 adjusted P/E ratio.BABA’s GAAP P/E ratio (25) is a little high, but the most recent quarter included large unrealized losses on the company’s stock portfolio. Adjusted earnings and cash from operations are more closely related to the company’s operating performance, and not surprisingly, they were much higher than GAAP earnings. This isn’t just selective choice of non-GAAP measures either: operating cash flow is a GAAP metric and Alibaba reports in accordance with U.S. GAAP.As we’ve seen, Alibaba is cheap, profitable, and has high historical growth. Certainly this stock has many things to recommend it, even after Charlie Munger rode off into the sunset. However, there are still risks and challenges to the bullish thesis on Alibaba stock. These are real risks that investors will need to keep in mind. But on balance, Alibaba looks like a solid value play today. It’s still growing its revenue, its cloud business is inching toward profitability, and its valuation is cheaper than ever before. On the whole, it looks like a sweet deal – with or without Munger on board.","news_type":1},"isVote":1,"likeStatus":false,"favoriteStatus":false,"reportStatus":false,"tweetType":1,"langContent":"EN"},{"id":9081760738,"gmtCreate":1650281314344,"gmtModify":1676534685271,"author":{"id":"3574895228566973","authorId":"3574895228566973","name":"Divihungry","avatar":"https://community-static.tradeup.com/news/8ea13ad65e835222314e28955f70eb77","vip":1,"crmLevel":5,"crmLevelSwitch":1},"htmlText":"Just long baba and dca when opportunities arise.","listText":"Just long baba and dca when opportunities arise.","text":"Just long baba and dca when opportunities arise.","images":[],"top":1,"highlighted":1,"essential":1,"paper":1,"likeSize":1,"commentSize":0,"repostSize":0,"link":"https://ttm.financial/post/9081760738","repostId":1110595663,"repostType":2,"repost":{"id":"1110595663","pubTimestamp":1650258996,"share":"https://www.laohu8.com/m/news/1110595663?lang=&edition=full","pubTime":"2022-04-18 13:16","market":"us","language":"en","title":"Alibaba: Munger Is Not The Thesis","url":"https://stock-news.laohu8.com/highlight/detail?id=1110595663","media":"Seeking Alpha","summary":"SummaryRecently the Daily Journal's 13F revealed that the company trimmed its Alibaba position by 50%.It isn't necessarily the case that former Chairman Charlie Munger sold due to weakening conviction","content":"<html><head></head><body><p>Summary</p><ul><li>Recently the Daily Journal&#39;s 13F revealed that the company trimmed its Alibaba position by 50%.</li><li>It isn&#39;t necessarily the case that former Chairman Charlie Munger sold due to weakening conviction on BABA stock itself.</li><li>However, Munger IS out of the picture in one very real way: he is no longer the Daily Journal&#39;s Chairman.</li><li>For this reason, Alibaba can no longer be considered a Munger copy trade.</li><li>In this article, I develop a fundamentals-based thesis for those who cloned Munger and now aren&#39;t sure what to do.</li></ul><p>Charlie Munger’s Alibaba Group (NYSE:BABA) investment was the talk of the town last week. In its Q1 13F, the Daily Journal Corp (DJCO) revealed that it had sold 50% of its stake in the Chinese tech company, after several quarters of averaging down. It wasn’t immediately clear whether Munger himself made the decision to sell the shares, as he had stepped down just days before the end of the quarter. Tu To was elected to serve as the company’s CFO on March 22. She signed all of the company’s SEC filings from the 22nd onward.</p><p>There are many reasons why Munger (or somebody else) might have chosen to sell Alibaba. Not all of them necessarily reflect lower conviction in the stock. It’s possible that DJCO converted some of its NYSE shares to Hong Kong shares, or sold to cover a margin loan. Munger hasn’t spoken on the matter publicly yet, nor have any other DJCO officers, so we don’t know.</p><p>Charlie Munger is thought to have influenced many investors who bought BABA stock in 2021. He began buying the stock around $226, averaging down after that. Many other investors made similar moves. It was shortly after Munger’s first 13F featuring Alibaba that internet communities focused on BABA really started to take off. Some were founded just days after the release.</p><p>Naturally, Munger’s apparent sale made a big splash. BABA has always been at least partially a Munger clone trade, and it appears that Munger’s conviction in the stock has diminished. Shortly after the 13F was released, investors took to Twitter offering opinions and running polls asking others about what had happened.</p><p>We may never know. But it doesn’t matter, because BABA ceased being a Munger clone trade long before the 13F came out. When Munger stepped down as Chairman of the Daily Journal, it created ambiguity as to the actual level of influence he will exercise over the firm’s portfolio going forward. The DJCO portfolio is no longer a Munger portfolio–or at least, not 100% a Munger portfolio. For this reason, investors will need a better thesis than “clone Munger because he is good.” In this article, I will attempt to advance such a thesis, based on valuation, competitive position and China&#39;s economic growth. First, though, let’s examine why it will not be possible to clone “Munger’s” BABA trades in future quarters.</p><p>Why Munger Can’t be Cloned Anymore</p><p>There are two reasons why it is impossible to clone Munger’s future BABA trades:</p><ol><li>Munger is no longer Chairman of the Daily Journal.</li><li>Some of DJCO’s potential trades are impossible to confirm.</li></ol><p>The first of these is easy enough to explain. When Munger was Chairman of the Daily Journal, he managed the investment portfolio. Now that he is no longer Chairman, he simply has the duties of a director. Munger could still volunteer to manage the portfolio, but the ultimate decisions would fall on Steven Myhill-Jones, the new CEO, or Tu To, the new CFO. The SEC filings announcing these new hires didn&#39;t say who&#39;d manage the portfolio.</p><p>The second reason why Munger can’t be cloned now is because some of his potential trades wouldn’t have to be disclosed. Munger is well known for not telling investors more than he has to. If he simply converted some of his NYSE ADRs to Hong Kong shares, as some think he did, then he is no longer under the obligation to report all of his holdings. As the SEC website states, you don’t have to disclose foreign listed shares in a 13F, even if your position is massive.</p><p><img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/5852b29d02869d997a4c8ce719caa59f\" tg-width=\"575\" tg-height=\"191\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\" width=\"100%\" height=\"auto\"/></p><p>What all this means is that cloning Munger’s BABA trades won’t be possible going forward. For those whose BABA position was little more than a Munger copycat, that has got to sting. Fortunately, the fundamentals-based thesis on the stock is not that difficult to comprehend, and can be explained in terms of four basic principles. In the next section I will explain that case in detail.</p><h2>The Bullish Thesis on BABA</h2><p>A strong bullish thesis on BABA can be built on four pillars:</p><ul><li>China’s economy.</li><li>BABA’s competitive position.</li><li>Financial health.</li><li>Valuation.</li></ul><p>I’ll look at each of these factors one by one, starting with China’s economy</p><h2>China’s Economy</h2><p>Despite the negative headlines you’re seeing these days, China’s economy is very strong. Its GDP growth was 8.1% in 2021. GDP has grown at 7.4% CAGR over 10 years. In 2020, when many countries entered recessions, China’s growth merely decelerated to 2.2%. With all of this growth, you might think that China is pumping itself full of debt. But think again! At 66.8, China’s government debt as a percentage of GDP is lower than that of the U.S., Canada, and the Eurozone. You may have heard stories about China’s “debt problem,” and claims of a 250% debt to GDP ratio. The figure is correct but it includes all debt, government and private. China’s government debt–the kind used to pay for fiscal stimulus–is low as a percentage of GDP. So China is growing very quickly and is fiscally sound enough to stimulate its economy should stimulation become necessary.</p><h2>BABA’s Competitive Position</h2><p>As we’ve seen, China has a high growth economy–the kind of economy that a company wants to operate in. That’s a great start but we still need to know about BABA’s competitive position.</p><p>As an eCommerce company, BABA has few rivals of similar scale. JD.com (JD) technically does more revenue than BABA does, but it has much smaller margins. It could beat Alibaba on scale but probably not on profitability. JD holds and sells inventory. It’s hard to beat a “platform” company like BABA when you have inventory costs. It eats into margins.</p><p>Pinduoduo (PDD) has been cited as a potential competitor to BABA but there’s just not much evidence of PDD moving beyond agricultural goods. Its group buying model has proven popular in China, but until it moves into other verticals, it’s not competing with huge chunks of Alibaba’s business.</p><p>Tencent (OTCPK:TCEHY) competes with BABA in one limited way: it has a payment app. The Chinese government forced BABA and Tencent to accept each other’s payment apps last year. So the competition between these two companies for share of payments has indeed increased.</p><h2>BABA’s Financials</h2><p>Alibaba’s long-term financials are excellent. The most recent calendar year was a bit of a departure from the long term trend, but that could turn around.</p><p>According to Seeking Alpha Quant, BABA’s five year CAGR growth rates in revenue, earnings and cash flows are:</p><ul><li>Revenue: 42%.</li><li>Net income: 11.3%.</li><li>Diluted EPS: 9.8%.</li><li>Free cash flow: 13.66%.</li></ul><p>These are pretty solid metrics. They were all much higher prior to this year, but the 2021 Chinese tech crackdown caused last year’s numbers to suffer. BABA did take some new costs in 2021, like a $2.8 billion fine and a higher tax rate. However, the fine was non-recurring and the higher tax rate could be “outgrown” with enough quarters of strong revenue gains.</p><p>At any rate, Alibaba has more than enough financial strength to ride out a few lacklustre quarters. Its balance sheet is one of the strongest in the world, boasting eye-popping metrics like:</p><ul><li>$276 billion in assets.</li><li>$100 billion in liabilities.</li><li>$176 billion in equity.</li><li>$45 billion in cash.</li><li>About $20 billion in debt (calculated from $5.09 billion in bonds $14.85 billion in long term bank loans).</li><li>$105 billion in current assets.</li><li>$64 billion in current liabilities.</li><li>A 0.2 debt to equity ratio.</li><li>A 1.64 current ratio.</li></ul><p>So we have debt that is very low as a proportion of shareholder equity, and high liquidity. Even BABA’s cash and equivalents outstrip its long term debt! This suggests a very solid balance sheet and a second-to-none ability to ride out a crisis.</p><h2>Valuation</h2><p>Valuation has always been one of the pillars on which the BABA bull case has rested. BABA stock is very cheap by almost every multiple you can think of. Some of its most encouraging value metrics include:</p><ul><li>Adjusted P/E: 11.</li><li>Price/sales: 1.96.</li><li>Price/book: 1.67.</li><li>Price/operating cash flow: 9.37.</li></ul><p>All of these multiples are comparatively low for the tech sector. For comparison, Amazon (AMZN), the closest comparable U.S. company, has a 46 adjusted P/E ratio.</p><p>BABA’s GAAP P/E ratio (25) is a little high, but the most recent quarter included large unrealized losses on the company’s stock portfolio. Adjusted earnings and cash from operations are more closely related to the company’s operating performance, and not surprisingly, they were much higher than GAAP earnings. This isn’t just selective choice of non-GAAP measures either: operating cash flow is a GAAP metric and Alibaba reports in accordance with U.S. GAAP.</p><p>As we’ve seen, Alibaba is cheap, profitable, and has high historical growth. Certainly this stock has many things to recommend it, even after Charlie Munger rode off into the sunset. However, there are still risks and challenges to the bullish thesis on Alibaba stock. </p><p>These are real risks that investors will need to keep in mind. But on balance, Alibaba looks like a solid value play today. It’s still growing its revenue, its cloud business is inching toward profitability, and its valuation is cheaper than ever before. On the whole, it looks like a sweet deal – with or without Munger on board.</p></body></html>","collect":0,"html":"<!DOCTYPE html>\n<html>\n<head>\n<meta http-equiv=\"Content-Type\" content=\"text/html; charset=utf-8\" />\n<meta name=\"viewport\" content=\"width=device-width,initial-scale=1.0,minimum-scale=1.0,maximum-scale=1.0,user-scalable=no\"/>\n<meta name=\"format-detection\" content=\"telephone=no,email=no,address=no\" />\n<title>Alibaba: Munger Is Not The Thesis</title>\n<style type=\"text/css\">\na,abbr,acronym,address,applet,article,aside,audio,b,big,blockquote,body,canvas,caption,center,cite,code,dd,del,details,dfn,div,dl,dt,\nem,embed,fieldset,figcaption,figure,footer,form,h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6,header,hgroup,html,i,iframe,img,ins,kbd,label,legend,li,mark,menu,nav,\nobject,ol,output,p,pre,q,ruby,s,samp,section,small,span,strike,strong,sub,summary,sup,table,tbody,td,tfoot,th,thead,time,tr,tt,u,ul,var,video{ font:inherit;margin:0;padding:0;vertical-align:baseline;border:0 }\nbody{ font-size:16px; line-height:1.5; color:#999; background:transparent; }\n.wrapper{ overflow:hidden;word-break:break-all;padding:10px; }\nh1,h2{ font-weight:normal; line-height:1.35; margin-bottom:.6em; }\nh3,h4,h5,h6{ line-height:1.35; margin-bottom:1em; }\nh1{ font-size:24px; }\nh2{ font-size:20px; }\nh3{ font-size:18px; }\nh4{ font-size:16px; }\nh5{ font-size:14px; }\nh6{ font-size:12px; }\np,ul,ol,blockquote,dl,table{ margin:1.2em 0; }\nul,ol{ margin-left:2em; }\nul{ list-style:disc; }\nol{ list-style:decimal; }\nli,li p{ margin:10px 0;}\nimg{ max-width:100%;display:block;margin:0 auto 1em; }\nblockquote{ color:#B5B2B1; border-left:3px solid #aaa; padding:1em; }\nstrong,b{font-weight:bold;}\nem,i{font-style:italic;}\ntable{ width:100%;border-collapse:collapse;border-spacing:1px;margin:1em 0;font-size:.9em; }\nth,td{ padding:5px;text-align:left;border:1px solid #aaa; }\nth{ font-weight:bold;background:#5d5d5d; }\n.symbol-link{font-weight:bold;}\n/* header{ border-bottom:1px solid #494756; } */\n.title{ margin:0 0 8px;line-height:1.3;color:#ddd; }\n.meta {color:#5e5c6d;font-size:13px;margin:0 0 .5em; }\na{text-decoration:none; color:#2a4b87;}\n.meta .head { display: inline-block; overflow: hidden}\n.head .h-thumb { width: 30px; height: 30px; margin: 0; padding: 0; border-radius: 50%; float: left;}\n.head .h-content { margin: 0; padding: 0 0 0 9px; float: left;}\n.head .h-name {font-size: 13px; color: #eee; margin: 0;}\n.head .h-time {font-size: 11px; color: #7E829C; margin: 0;line-height: 11px;}\n.small {font-size: 12.5px; display: inline-block; transform: scale(0.9); -webkit-transform: scale(0.9); transform-origin: left; -webkit-transform-origin: left;}\n.smaller {font-size: 12.5px; display: inline-block; transform: scale(0.8); -webkit-transform: scale(0.8); transform-origin: left; -webkit-transform-origin: left;}\n.bt-text {font-size: 12px;margin: 1.5em 0 0 0}\n.bt-text p {margin: 0}\n</style>\n</head>\n<body>\n<div class=\"wrapper\">\n<header>\n<h2 class=\"title\">\nAlibaba: Munger Is Not The Thesis\n</h2>\n\n<h4 class=\"meta\">\n\n\n2022-04-18 13:16 GMT+8&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href=https://seekingalpha.com/article/4501707-alibaba-munger-not-thesis><strong>Seeking Alpha</strong></a>\n\n\n</h4>\n\n</header>\n<article>\n<div>\n<p>SummaryRecently the Daily Journal's 13F revealed that the company trimmed its Alibaba position by 50%.It isn't necessarily the case that former Chairman Charlie Munger sold due to weakening conviction...</p>\n\n<a href=\"https://seekingalpha.com/article/4501707-alibaba-munger-not-thesis\">Web Link</a>\n\n</div>\n\n\n</article>\n</div>\n</body>\n</html>\n","type":0,"thumbnail":"","relate_stocks":{"BABA":"阿里巴巴"},"source_url":"https://seekingalpha.com/article/4501707-alibaba-munger-not-thesis","is_english":true,"share_image_url":"https://static.laohu8.com/e9f99090a1c2ed51c021029395664489","article_id":"1110595663","content_text":"SummaryRecently the Daily Journal's 13F revealed that the company trimmed its Alibaba position by 50%.It isn't necessarily the case that former Chairman Charlie Munger sold due to weakening conviction on BABA stock itself.However, Munger IS out of the picture in one very real way: he is no longer the Daily Journal's Chairman.For this reason, Alibaba can no longer be considered a Munger copy trade.In this article, I develop a fundamentals-based thesis for those who cloned Munger and now aren't sure what to do.Charlie Munger’s Alibaba Group (NYSE:BABA) investment was the talk of the town last week. In its Q1 13F, the Daily Journal Corp (DJCO) revealed that it had sold 50% of its stake in the Chinese tech company, after several quarters of averaging down. It wasn’t immediately clear whether Munger himself made the decision to sell the shares, as he had stepped down just days before the end of the quarter. Tu To was elected to serve as the company’s CFO on March 22. She signed all of the company’s SEC filings from the 22nd onward.There are many reasons why Munger (or somebody else) might have chosen to sell Alibaba. Not all of them necessarily reflect lower conviction in the stock. It’s possible that DJCO converted some of its NYSE shares to Hong Kong shares, or sold to cover a margin loan. Munger hasn’t spoken on the matter publicly yet, nor have any other DJCO officers, so we don’t know.Charlie Munger is thought to have influenced many investors who bought BABA stock in 2021. He began buying the stock around $226, averaging down after that. Many other investors made similar moves. It was shortly after Munger’s first 13F featuring Alibaba that internet communities focused on BABA really started to take off. Some were founded just days after the release.Naturally, Munger’s apparent sale made a big splash. BABA has always been at least partially a Munger clone trade, and it appears that Munger’s conviction in the stock has diminished. Shortly after the 13F was released, investors took to Twitter offering opinions and running polls asking others about what had happened.We may never know. But it doesn’t matter, because BABA ceased being a Munger clone trade long before the 13F came out. When Munger stepped down as Chairman of the Daily Journal, it created ambiguity as to the actual level of influence he will exercise over the firm’s portfolio going forward. The DJCO portfolio is no longer a Munger portfolio–or at least, not 100% a Munger portfolio. For this reason, investors will need a better thesis than “clone Munger because he is good.” In this article, I will attempt to advance such a thesis, based on valuation, competitive position and China's economic growth. First, though, let’s examine why it will not be possible to clone “Munger’s” BABA trades in future quarters.Why Munger Can’t be Cloned AnymoreThere are two reasons why it is impossible to clone Munger’s future BABA trades:Munger is no longer Chairman of the Daily Journal.Some of DJCO’s potential trades are impossible to confirm.The first of these is easy enough to explain. When Munger was Chairman of the Daily Journal, he managed the investment portfolio. Now that he is no longer Chairman, he simply has the duties of a director. Munger could still volunteer to manage the portfolio, but the ultimate decisions would fall on Steven Myhill-Jones, the new CEO, or Tu To, the new CFO. The SEC filings announcing these new hires didn't say who'd manage the portfolio.The second reason why Munger can’t be cloned now is because some of his potential trades wouldn’t have to be disclosed. Munger is well known for not telling investors more than he has to. If he simply converted some of his NYSE ADRs to Hong Kong shares, as some think he did, then he is no longer under the obligation to report all of his holdings. As the SEC website states, you don’t have to disclose foreign listed shares in a 13F, even if your position is massive.What all this means is that cloning Munger’s BABA trades won’t be possible going forward. For those whose BABA position was little more than a Munger copycat, that has got to sting. Fortunately, the fundamentals-based thesis on the stock is not that difficult to comprehend, and can be explained in terms of four basic principles. In the next section I will explain that case in detail.The Bullish Thesis on BABAA strong bullish thesis on BABA can be built on four pillars:China’s economy.BABA’s competitive position.Financial health.Valuation.I’ll look at each of these factors one by one, starting with China’s economyChina’s EconomyDespite the negative headlines you’re seeing these days, China’s economy is very strong. Its GDP growth was 8.1% in 2021. GDP has grown at 7.4% CAGR over 10 years. In 2020, when many countries entered recessions, China’s growth merely decelerated to 2.2%. With all of this growth, you might think that China is pumping itself full of debt. But think again! At 66.8, China’s government debt as a percentage of GDP is lower than that of the U.S., Canada, and the Eurozone. You may have heard stories about China’s “debt problem,” and claims of a 250% debt to GDP ratio. The figure is correct but it includes all debt, government and private. China’s government debt–the kind used to pay for fiscal stimulus–is low as a percentage of GDP. So China is growing very quickly and is fiscally sound enough to stimulate its economy should stimulation become necessary.BABA’s Competitive PositionAs we’ve seen, China has a high growth economy–the kind of economy that a company wants to operate in. That’s a great start but we still need to know about BABA’s competitive position.As an eCommerce company, BABA has few rivals of similar scale. JD.com (JD) technically does more revenue than BABA does, but it has much smaller margins. It could beat Alibaba on scale but probably not on profitability. JD holds and sells inventory. It’s hard to beat a “platform” company like BABA when you have inventory costs. It eats into margins.Pinduoduo (PDD) has been cited as a potential competitor to BABA but there’s just not much evidence of PDD moving beyond agricultural goods. Its group buying model has proven popular in China, but until it moves into other verticals, it’s not competing with huge chunks of Alibaba’s business.Tencent (OTCPK:TCEHY) competes with BABA in one limited way: it has a payment app. The Chinese government forced BABA and Tencent to accept each other’s payment apps last year. So the competition between these two companies for share of payments has indeed increased.BABA’s FinancialsAlibaba’s long-term financials are excellent. The most recent calendar year was a bit of a departure from the long term trend, but that could turn around.According to Seeking Alpha Quant, BABA’s five year CAGR growth rates in revenue, earnings and cash flows are:Revenue: 42%.Net income: 11.3%.Diluted EPS: 9.8%.Free cash flow: 13.66%.These are pretty solid metrics. They were all much higher prior to this year, but the 2021 Chinese tech crackdown caused last year’s numbers to suffer. BABA did take some new costs in 2021, like a $2.8 billion fine and a higher tax rate. However, the fine was non-recurring and the higher tax rate could be “outgrown” with enough quarters of strong revenue gains.At any rate, Alibaba has more than enough financial strength to ride out a few lacklustre quarters. Its balance sheet is one of the strongest in the world, boasting eye-popping metrics like:$276 billion in assets.$100 billion in liabilities.$176 billion in equity.$45 billion in cash.About $20 billion in debt (calculated from $5.09 billion in bonds $14.85 billion in long term bank loans).$105 billion in current assets.$64 billion in current liabilities.A 0.2 debt to equity ratio.A 1.64 current ratio.So we have debt that is very low as a proportion of shareholder equity, and high liquidity. Even BABA’s cash and equivalents outstrip its long term debt! This suggests a very solid balance sheet and a second-to-none ability to ride out a crisis.ValuationValuation has always been one of the pillars on which the BABA bull case has rested. BABA stock is very cheap by almost every multiple you can think of. Some of its most encouraging value metrics include:Adjusted P/E: 11.Price/sales: 1.96.Price/book: 1.67.Price/operating cash flow: 9.37.All of these multiples are comparatively low for the tech sector. For comparison, Amazon (AMZN), the closest comparable U.S. company, has a 46 adjusted P/E ratio.BABA’s GAAP P/E ratio (25) is a little high, but the most recent quarter included large unrealized losses on the company’s stock portfolio. Adjusted earnings and cash from operations are more closely related to the company’s operating performance, and not surprisingly, they were much higher than GAAP earnings. This isn’t just selective choice of non-GAAP measures either: operating cash flow is a GAAP metric and Alibaba reports in accordance with U.S. GAAP.As we’ve seen, Alibaba is cheap, profitable, and has high historical growth. Certainly this stock has many things to recommend it, even after Charlie Munger rode off into the sunset. However, there are still risks and challenges to the bullish thesis on Alibaba stock. These are real risks that investors will need to keep in mind. But on balance, Alibaba looks like a solid value play today. It’s still growing its revenue, its cloud business is inching toward profitability, and its valuation is cheaper than ever before. On the whole, it looks like a sweet deal – with or without Munger on board.","news_type":1},"isVote":1,"likeStatus":false,"favoriteStatus":false,"reportStatus":false,"tweetType":1,"langContent":"EN"},{"id":9081709885,"gmtCreate":1650274146206,"gmtModify":1676534684025,"author":{"id":"4088558046227310","authorId":"4088558046227310","name":"BlueBear","avatar":"https://static.tigerbbs.com/a4c78e4c05c47b817a29daef055b1378","vip":1,"hat":"https://static.tigerbbs.com/ae1f49570794979e009a5efdeb6f4789","crmLevel":7,"crmLevelSwitch":1},"htmlText":"Dont follow blindly&nbsp;","listText":"Dont follow blindly&nbsp;","text":"Dont follow blindly","images":[],"top":1,"highlighted":1,"essential":1,"paper":1,"likeSize":1,"commentSize":0,"repostSize":0,"link":"https://ttm.financial/post/9081709885","repostId":1110595663,"repostType":4,"repost":{"id":"1110595663","pubTimestamp":1650258996,"share":"https://www.laohu8.com/m/news/1110595663?lang=&edition=full","pubTime":"2022-04-18 13:16","market":"us","language":"en","title":"Alibaba: Munger Is Not The Thesis","url":"https://stock-news.laohu8.com/highlight/detail?id=1110595663","media":"Seeking Alpha","summary":"SummaryRecently the Daily Journal's 13F revealed that the company trimmed its Alibaba position by 50%.It isn't necessarily the case that former Chairman Charlie Munger sold due to weakening conviction","content":"<html><head></head><body><p>Summary</p><ul><li>Recently the Daily Journal&#39;s 13F revealed that the company trimmed its Alibaba position by 50%.</li><li>It isn&#39;t necessarily the case that former Chairman Charlie Munger sold due to weakening conviction on BABA stock itself.</li><li>However, Munger IS out of the picture in one very real way: he is no longer the Daily Journal&#39;s Chairman.</li><li>For this reason, Alibaba can no longer be considered a Munger copy trade.</li><li>In this article, I develop a fundamentals-based thesis for those who cloned Munger and now aren&#39;t sure what to do.</li></ul><p>Charlie Munger’s Alibaba Group (NYSE:BABA) investment was the talk of the town last week. In its Q1 13F, the Daily Journal Corp (DJCO) revealed that it had sold 50% of its stake in the Chinese tech company, after several quarters of averaging down. It wasn’t immediately clear whether Munger himself made the decision to sell the shares, as he had stepped down just days before the end of the quarter. Tu To was elected to serve as the company’s CFO on March 22. She signed all of the company’s SEC filings from the 22nd onward.</p><p>There are many reasons why Munger (or somebody else) might have chosen to sell Alibaba. Not all of them necessarily reflect lower conviction in the stock. It’s possible that DJCO converted some of its NYSE shares to Hong Kong shares, or sold to cover a margin loan. Munger hasn’t spoken on the matter publicly yet, nor have any other DJCO officers, so we don’t know.</p><p>Charlie Munger is thought to have influenced many investors who bought BABA stock in 2021. He began buying the stock around $226, averaging down after that. Many other investors made similar moves. It was shortly after Munger’s first 13F featuring Alibaba that internet communities focused on BABA really started to take off. Some were founded just days after the release.</p><p>Naturally, Munger’s apparent sale made a big splash. BABA has always been at least partially a Munger clone trade, and it appears that Munger’s conviction in the stock has diminished. Shortly after the 13F was released, investors took to Twitter offering opinions and running polls asking others about what had happened.</p><p>We may never know. But it doesn’t matter, because BABA ceased being a Munger clone trade long before the 13F came out. When Munger stepped down as Chairman of the Daily Journal, it created ambiguity as to the actual level of influence he will exercise over the firm’s portfolio going forward. The DJCO portfolio is no longer a Munger portfolio–or at least, not 100% a Munger portfolio. For this reason, investors will need a better thesis than “clone Munger because he is good.” In this article, I will attempt to advance such a thesis, based on valuation, competitive position and China&#39;s economic growth. First, though, let’s examine why it will not be possible to clone “Munger’s” BABA trades in future quarters.</p><p>Why Munger Can’t be Cloned Anymore</p><p>There are two reasons why it is impossible to clone Munger’s future BABA trades:</p><ol><li>Munger is no longer Chairman of the Daily Journal.</li><li>Some of DJCO’s potential trades are impossible to confirm.</li></ol><p>The first of these is easy enough to explain. When Munger was Chairman of the Daily Journal, he managed the investment portfolio. Now that he is no longer Chairman, he simply has the duties of a director. Munger could still volunteer to manage the portfolio, but the ultimate decisions would fall on Steven Myhill-Jones, the new CEO, or Tu To, the new CFO. The SEC filings announcing these new hires didn&#39;t say who&#39;d manage the portfolio.</p><p>The second reason why Munger can’t be cloned now is because some of his potential trades wouldn’t have to be disclosed. Munger is well known for not telling investors more than he has to. If he simply converted some of his NYSE ADRs to Hong Kong shares, as some think he did, then he is no longer under the obligation to report all of his holdings. As the SEC website states, you don’t have to disclose foreign listed shares in a 13F, even if your position is massive.</p><p><img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/5852b29d02869d997a4c8ce719caa59f\" tg-width=\"575\" tg-height=\"191\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\" width=\"100%\" height=\"auto\"/></p><p>What all this means is that cloning Munger’s BABA trades won’t be possible going forward. For those whose BABA position was little more than a Munger copycat, that has got to sting. Fortunately, the fundamentals-based thesis on the stock is not that difficult to comprehend, and can be explained in terms of four basic principles. In the next section I will explain that case in detail.</p><h2>The Bullish Thesis on BABA</h2><p>A strong bullish thesis on BABA can be built on four pillars:</p><ul><li>China’s economy.</li><li>BABA’s competitive position.</li><li>Financial health.</li><li>Valuation.</li></ul><p>I’ll look at each of these factors one by one, starting with China’s economy</p><h2>China’s Economy</h2><p>Despite the negative headlines you’re seeing these days, China’s economy is very strong. Its GDP growth was 8.1% in 2021. GDP has grown at 7.4% CAGR over 10 years. In 2020, when many countries entered recessions, China’s growth merely decelerated to 2.2%. With all of this growth, you might think that China is pumping itself full of debt. But think again! At 66.8, China’s government debt as a percentage of GDP is lower than that of the U.S., Canada, and the Eurozone. You may have heard stories about China’s “debt problem,” and claims of a 250% debt to GDP ratio. The figure is correct but it includes all debt, government and private. China’s government debt–the kind used to pay for fiscal stimulus–is low as a percentage of GDP. So China is growing very quickly and is fiscally sound enough to stimulate its economy should stimulation become necessary.</p><h2>BABA’s Competitive Position</h2><p>As we’ve seen, China has a high growth economy–the kind of economy that a company wants to operate in. That’s a great start but we still need to know about BABA’s competitive position.</p><p>As an eCommerce company, BABA has few rivals of similar scale. JD.com (JD) technically does more revenue than BABA does, but it has much smaller margins. It could beat Alibaba on scale but probably not on profitability. JD holds and sells inventory. It’s hard to beat a “platform” company like BABA when you have inventory costs. It eats into margins.</p><p>Pinduoduo (PDD) has been cited as a potential competitor to BABA but there’s just not much evidence of PDD moving beyond agricultural goods. Its group buying model has proven popular in China, but until it moves into other verticals, it’s not competing with huge chunks of Alibaba’s business.</p><p>Tencent (OTCPK:TCEHY) competes with BABA in one limited way: it has a payment app. The Chinese government forced BABA and Tencent to accept each other’s payment apps last year. So the competition between these two companies for share of payments has indeed increased.</p><h2>BABA’s Financials</h2><p>Alibaba’s long-term financials are excellent. The most recent calendar year was a bit of a departure from the long term trend, but that could turn around.</p><p>According to Seeking Alpha Quant, BABA’s five year CAGR growth rates in revenue, earnings and cash flows are:</p><ul><li>Revenue: 42%.</li><li>Net income: 11.3%.</li><li>Diluted EPS: 9.8%.</li><li>Free cash flow: 13.66%.</li></ul><p>These are pretty solid metrics. They were all much higher prior to this year, but the 2021 Chinese tech crackdown caused last year’s numbers to suffer. BABA did take some new costs in 2021, like a $2.8 billion fine and a higher tax rate. However, the fine was non-recurring and the higher tax rate could be “outgrown” with enough quarters of strong revenue gains.</p><p>At any rate, Alibaba has more than enough financial strength to ride out a few lacklustre quarters. Its balance sheet is one of the strongest in the world, boasting eye-popping metrics like:</p><ul><li>$276 billion in assets.</li><li>$100 billion in liabilities.</li><li>$176 billion in equity.</li><li>$45 billion in cash.</li><li>About $20 billion in debt (calculated from $5.09 billion in bonds $14.85 billion in long term bank loans).</li><li>$105 billion in current assets.</li><li>$64 billion in current liabilities.</li><li>A 0.2 debt to equity ratio.</li><li>A 1.64 current ratio.</li></ul><p>So we have debt that is very low as a proportion of shareholder equity, and high liquidity. Even BABA’s cash and equivalents outstrip its long term debt! This suggests a very solid balance sheet and a second-to-none ability to ride out a crisis.</p><h2>Valuation</h2><p>Valuation has always been one of the pillars on which the BABA bull case has rested. BABA stock is very cheap by almost every multiple you can think of. Some of its most encouraging value metrics include:</p><ul><li>Adjusted P/E: 11.</li><li>Price/sales: 1.96.</li><li>Price/book: 1.67.</li><li>Price/operating cash flow: 9.37.</li></ul><p>All of these multiples are comparatively low for the tech sector. For comparison, Amazon (AMZN), the closest comparable U.S. company, has a 46 adjusted P/E ratio.</p><p>BABA’s GAAP P/E ratio (25) is a little high, but the most recent quarter included large unrealized losses on the company’s stock portfolio. Adjusted earnings and cash from operations are more closely related to the company’s operating performance, and not surprisingly, they were much higher than GAAP earnings. This isn’t just selective choice of non-GAAP measures either: operating cash flow is a GAAP metric and Alibaba reports in accordance with U.S. GAAP.</p><p>As we’ve seen, Alibaba is cheap, profitable, and has high historical growth. Certainly this stock has many things to recommend it, even after Charlie Munger rode off into the sunset. However, there are still risks and challenges to the bullish thesis on Alibaba stock. </p><p>These are real risks that investors will need to keep in mind. But on balance, Alibaba looks like a solid value play today. It’s still growing its revenue, its cloud business is inching toward profitability, and its valuation is cheaper than ever before. On the whole, it looks like a sweet deal – with or without Munger on board.</p></body></html>","collect":0,"html":"<!DOCTYPE html>\n<html>\n<head>\n<meta http-equiv=\"Content-Type\" content=\"text/html; charset=utf-8\" />\n<meta name=\"viewport\" content=\"width=device-width,initial-scale=1.0,minimum-scale=1.0,maximum-scale=1.0,user-scalable=no\"/>\n<meta name=\"format-detection\" content=\"telephone=no,email=no,address=no\" />\n<title>Alibaba: Munger Is Not The Thesis</title>\n<style type=\"text/css\">\na,abbr,acronym,address,applet,article,aside,audio,b,big,blockquote,body,canvas,caption,center,cite,code,dd,del,details,dfn,div,dl,dt,\nem,embed,fieldset,figcaption,figure,footer,form,h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6,header,hgroup,html,i,iframe,img,ins,kbd,label,legend,li,mark,menu,nav,\nobject,ol,output,p,pre,q,ruby,s,samp,section,small,span,strike,strong,sub,summary,sup,table,tbody,td,tfoot,th,thead,time,tr,tt,u,ul,var,video{ font:inherit;margin:0;padding:0;vertical-align:baseline;border:0 }\nbody{ font-size:16px; line-height:1.5; color:#999; background:transparent; }\n.wrapper{ overflow:hidden;word-break:break-all;padding:10px; }\nh1,h2{ font-weight:normal; line-height:1.35; margin-bottom:.6em; }\nh3,h4,h5,h6{ line-height:1.35; margin-bottom:1em; }\nh1{ font-size:24px; }\nh2{ font-size:20px; }\nh3{ font-size:18px; }\nh4{ font-size:16px; }\nh5{ font-size:14px; }\nh6{ font-size:12px; }\np,ul,ol,blockquote,dl,table{ margin:1.2em 0; }\nul,ol{ margin-left:2em; }\nul{ list-style:disc; }\nol{ list-style:decimal; }\nli,li p{ margin:10px 0;}\nimg{ max-width:100%;display:block;margin:0 auto 1em; }\nblockquote{ color:#B5B2B1; border-left:3px solid #aaa; padding:1em; }\nstrong,b{font-weight:bold;}\nem,i{font-style:italic;}\ntable{ width:100%;border-collapse:collapse;border-spacing:1px;margin:1em 0;font-size:.9em; }\nth,td{ padding:5px;text-align:left;border:1px solid #aaa; }\nth{ font-weight:bold;background:#5d5d5d; }\n.symbol-link{font-weight:bold;}\n/* header{ border-bottom:1px solid #494756; } */\n.title{ margin:0 0 8px;line-height:1.3;color:#ddd; }\n.meta {color:#5e5c6d;font-size:13px;margin:0 0 .5em; }\na{text-decoration:none; color:#2a4b87;}\n.meta .head { display: inline-block; overflow: hidden}\n.head .h-thumb { width: 30px; height: 30px; margin: 0; padding: 0; border-radius: 50%; float: left;}\n.head .h-content { margin: 0; padding: 0 0 0 9px; float: left;}\n.head .h-name {font-size: 13px; color: #eee; margin: 0;}\n.head .h-time {font-size: 11px; color: #7E829C; margin: 0;line-height: 11px;}\n.small {font-size: 12.5px; display: inline-block; transform: scale(0.9); -webkit-transform: scale(0.9); transform-origin: left; -webkit-transform-origin: left;}\n.smaller {font-size: 12.5px; display: inline-block; transform: scale(0.8); -webkit-transform: scale(0.8); transform-origin: left; -webkit-transform-origin: left;}\n.bt-text {font-size: 12px;margin: 1.5em 0 0 0}\n.bt-text p {margin: 0}\n</style>\n</head>\n<body>\n<div class=\"wrapper\">\n<header>\n<h2 class=\"title\">\nAlibaba: Munger Is Not The Thesis\n</h2>\n\n<h4 class=\"meta\">\n\n\n2022-04-18 13:16 GMT+8&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href=https://seekingalpha.com/article/4501707-alibaba-munger-not-thesis><strong>Seeking Alpha</strong></a>\n\n\n</h4>\n\n</header>\n<article>\n<div>\n<p>SummaryRecently the Daily Journal's 13F revealed that the company trimmed its Alibaba position by 50%.It isn't necessarily the case that former Chairman Charlie Munger sold due to weakening conviction...</p>\n\n<a href=\"https://seekingalpha.com/article/4501707-alibaba-munger-not-thesis\">Web Link</a>\n\n</div>\n\n\n</article>\n</div>\n</body>\n</html>\n","type":0,"thumbnail":"","relate_stocks":{"BABA":"阿里巴巴"},"source_url":"https://seekingalpha.com/article/4501707-alibaba-munger-not-thesis","is_english":true,"share_image_url":"https://static.laohu8.com/e9f99090a1c2ed51c021029395664489","article_id":"1110595663","content_text":"SummaryRecently the Daily Journal's 13F revealed that the company trimmed its Alibaba position by 50%.It isn't necessarily the case that former Chairman Charlie Munger sold due to weakening conviction on BABA stock itself.However, Munger IS out of the picture in one very real way: he is no longer the Daily Journal's Chairman.For this reason, Alibaba can no longer be considered a Munger copy trade.In this article, I develop a fundamentals-based thesis for those who cloned Munger and now aren't sure what to do.Charlie Munger’s Alibaba Group (NYSE:BABA) investment was the talk of the town last week. In its Q1 13F, the Daily Journal Corp (DJCO) revealed that it had sold 50% of its stake in the Chinese tech company, after several quarters of averaging down. It wasn’t immediately clear whether Munger himself made the decision to sell the shares, as he had stepped down just days before the end of the quarter. Tu To was elected to serve as the company’s CFO on March 22. She signed all of the company’s SEC filings from the 22nd onward.There are many reasons why Munger (or somebody else) might have chosen to sell Alibaba. Not all of them necessarily reflect lower conviction in the stock. It’s possible that DJCO converted some of its NYSE shares to Hong Kong shares, or sold to cover a margin loan. Munger hasn’t spoken on the matter publicly yet, nor have any other DJCO officers, so we don’t know.Charlie Munger is thought to have influenced many investors who bought BABA stock in 2021. He began buying the stock around $226, averaging down after that. Many other investors made similar moves. It was shortly after Munger’s first 13F featuring Alibaba that internet communities focused on BABA really started to take off. Some were founded just days after the release.Naturally, Munger’s apparent sale made a big splash. BABA has always been at least partially a Munger clone trade, and it appears that Munger’s conviction in the stock has diminished. Shortly after the 13F was released, investors took to Twitter offering opinions and running polls asking others about what had happened.We may never know. But it doesn’t matter, because BABA ceased being a Munger clone trade long before the 13F came out. When Munger stepped down as Chairman of the Daily Journal, it created ambiguity as to the actual level of influence he will exercise over the firm’s portfolio going forward. The DJCO portfolio is no longer a Munger portfolio–or at least, not 100% a Munger portfolio. For this reason, investors will need a better thesis than “clone Munger because he is good.” In this article, I will attempt to advance such a thesis, based on valuation, competitive position and China's economic growth. First, though, let’s examine why it will not be possible to clone “Munger’s” BABA trades in future quarters.Why Munger Can’t be Cloned AnymoreThere are two reasons why it is impossible to clone Munger’s future BABA trades:Munger is no longer Chairman of the Daily Journal.Some of DJCO’s potential trades are impossible to confirm.The first of these is easy enough to explain. When Munger was Chairman of the Daily Journal, he managed the investment portfolio. Now that he is no longer Chairman, he simply has the duties of a director. Munger could still volunteer to manage the portfolio, but the ultimate decisions would fall on Steven Myhill-Jones, the new CEO, or Tu To, the new CFO. The SEC filings announcing these new hires didn't say who'd manage the portfolio.The second reason why Munger can’t be cloned now is because some of his potential trades wouldn’t have to be disclosed. Munger is well known for not telling investors more than he has to. If he simply converted some of his NYSE ADRs to Hong Kong shares, as some think he did, then he is no longer under the obligation to report all of his holdings. As the SEC website states, you don’t have to disclose foreign listed shares in a 13F, even if your position is massive.What all this means is that cloning Munger’s BABA trades won’t be possible going forward. For those whose BABA position was little more than a Munger copycat, that has got to sting. Fortunately, the fundamentals-based thesis on the stock is not that difficult to comprehend, and can be explained in terms of four basic principles. In the next section I will explain that case in detail.The Bullish Thesis on BABAA strong bullish thesis on BABA can be built on four pillars:China’s economy.BABA’s competitive position.Financial health.Valuation.I’ll look at each of these factors one by one, starting with China’s economyChina’s EconomyDespite the negative headlines you’re seeing these days, China’s economy is very strong. Its GDP growth was 8.1% in 2021. GDP has grown at 7.4% CAGR over 10 years. In 2020, when many countries entered recessions, China’s growth merely decelerated to 2.2%. With all of this growth, you might think that China is pumping itself full of debt. But think again! At 66.8, China’s government debt as a percentage of GDP is lower than that of the U.S., Canada, and the Eurozone. You may have heard stories about China’s “debt problem,” and claims of a 250% debt to GDP ratio. The figure is correct but it includes all debt, government and private. China’s government debt–the kind used to pay for fiscal stimulus–is low as a percentage of GDP. So China is growing very quickly and is fiscally sound enough to stimulate its economy should stimulation become necessary.BABA’s Competitive PositionAs we’ve seen, China has a high growth economy–the kind of economy that a company wants to operate in. That’s a great start but we still need to know about BABA’s competitive position.As an eCommerce company, BABA has few rivals of similar scale. JD.com (JD) technically does more revenue than BABA does, but it has much smaller margins. It could beat Alibaba on scale but probably not on profitability. JD holds and sells inventory. It’s hard to beat a “platform” company like BABA when you have inventory costs. It eats into margins.Pinduoduo (PDD) has been cited as a potential competitor to BABA but there’s just not much evidence of PDD moving beyond agricultural goods. Its group buying model has proven popular in China, but until it moves into other verticals, it’s not competing with huge chunks of Alibaba’s business.Tencent (OTCPK:TCEHY) competes with BABA in one limited way: it has a payment app. The Chinese government forced BABA and Tencent to accept each other’s payment apps last year. So the competition between these two companies for share of payments has indeed increased.BABA’s FinancialsAlibaba’s long-term financials are excellent. The most recent calendar year was a bit of a departure from the long term trend, but that could turn around.According to Seeking Alpha Quant, BABA’s five year CAGR growth rates in revenue, earnings and cash flows are:Revenue: 42%.Net income: 11.3%.Diluted EPS: 9.8%.Free cash flow: 13.66%.These are pretty solid metrics. They were all much higher prior to this year, but the 2021 Chinese tech crackdown caused last year’s numbers to suffer. BABA did take some new costs in 2021, like a $2.8 billion fine and a higher tax rate. However, the fine was non-recurring and the higher tax rate could be “outgrown” with enough quarters of strong revenue gains.At any rate, Alibaba has more than enough financial strength to ride out a few lacklustre quarters. Its balance sheet is one of the strongest in the world, boasting eye-popping metrics like:$276 billion in assets.$100 billion in liabilities.$176 billion in equity.$45 billion in cash.About $20 billion in debt (calculated from $5.09 billion in bonds $14.85 billion in long term bank loans).$105 billion in current assets.$64 billion in current liabilities.A 0.2 debt to equity ratio.A 1.64 current ratio.So we have debt that is very low as a proportion of shareholder equity, and high liquidity. Even BABA’s cash and equivalents outstrip its long term debt! This suggests a very solid balance sheet and a second-to-none ability to ride out a crisis.ValuationValuation has always been one of the pillars on which the BABA bull case has rested. BABA stock is very cheap by almost every multiple you can think of. Some of its most encouraging value metrics include:Adjusted P/E: 11.Price/sales: 1.96.Price/book: 1.67.Price/operating cash flow: 9.37.All of these multiples are comparatively low for the tech sector. For comparison, Amazon (AMZN), the closest comparable U.S. company, has a 46 adjusted P/E ratio.BABA’s GAAP P/E ratio (25) is a little high, but the most recent quarter included large unrealized losses on the company’s stock portfolio. Adjusted earnings and cash from operations are more closely related to the company’s operating performance, and not surprisingly, they were much higher than GAAP earnings. This isn’t just selective choice of non-GAAP measures either: operating cash flow is a GAAP metric and Alibaba reports in accordance with U.S. GAAP.As we’ve seen, Alibaba is cheap, profitable, and has high historical growth. Certainly this stock has many things to recommend it, even after Charlie Munger rode off into the sunset. However, there are still risks and challenges to the bullish thesis on Alibaba stock. These are real risks that investors will need to keep in mind. But on balance, Alibaba looks like a solid value play today. It’s still growing its revenue, its cloud business is inching toward profitability, and its valuation is cheaper than ever before. On the whole, it looks like a sweet deal – with or without Munger on board.","news_type":1},"isVote":1,"likeStatus":false,"favoriteStatus":false,"reportStatus":false,"tweetType":1,"langContent":"EN"},{"id":9081477405,"gmtCreate":1650273954106,"gmtModify":1676534683960,"author":{"id":"4087452914358580","authorId":"4087452914358580","name":"SanWangtikup","avatar":"https://static.tigerbbs.com/c7f061d50a9f915d0ce8e8c879871960","vip":1,"hat":"https://static.tigerbbs.com/b073a07f77dbe6b3bec6b12311fde6bd","crmLevel":2,"crmLevelSwitch":0},"htmlText":"[Duh]&nbsp;","listText":"[Duh]&nbsp;","text":"[Duh]","images":[],"top":1,"highlighted":1,"essential":1,"paper":1,"likeSize":1,"commentSize":0,"repostSize":0,"link":"https://ttm.financial/post/9081477405","repostId":1110595663,"repostType":4,"repost":{"id":"1110595663","pubTimestamp":1650258996,"share":"https://www.laohu8.com/m/news/1110595663?lang=&edition=full","pubTime":"2022-04-18 13:16","market":"us","language":"en","title":"Alibaba: Munger Is Not The Thesis","url":"https://stock-news.laohu8.com/highlight/detail?id=1110595663","media":"Seeking Alpha","summary":"SummaryRecently the Daily Journal's 13F revealed that the company trimmed its Alibaba position by 50%.It isn't necessarily the case that former Chairman Charlie Munger sold due to weakening conviction","content":"<html><head></head><body><p>Summary</p><ul><li>Recently the Daily Journal&#39;s 13F revealed that the company trimmed its Alibaba position by 50%.</li><li>It isn&#39;t necessarily the case that former Chairman Charlie Munger sold due to weakening conviction on BABA stock itself.</li><li>However, Munger IS out of the picture in one very real way: he is no longer the Daily Journal&#39;s Chairman.</li><li>For this reason, Alibaba can no longer be considered a Munger copy trade.</li><li>In this article, I develop a fundamentals-based thesis for those who cloned Munger and now aren&#39;t sure what to do.</li></ul><p>Charlie Munger’s Alibaba Group (NYSE:BABA) investment was the talk of the town last week. In its Q1 13F, the Daily Journal Corp (DJCO) revealed that it had sold 50% of its stake in the Chinese tech company, after several quarters of averaging down. It wasn’t immediately clear whether Munger himself made the decision to sell the shares, as he had stepped down just days before the end of the quarter. Tu To was elected to serve as the company’s CFO on March 22. She signed all of the company’s SEC filings from the 22nd onward.</p><p>There are many reasons why Munger (or somebody else) might have chosen to sell Alibaba. Not all of them necessarily reflect lower conviction in the stock. It’s possible that DJCO converted some of its NYSE shares to Hong Kong shares, or sold to cover a margin loan. Munger hasn’t spoken on the matter publicly yet, nor have any other DJCO officers, so we don’t know.</p><p>Charlie Munger is thought to have influenced many investors who bought BABA stock in 2021. He began buying the stock around $226, averaging down after that. Many other investors made similar moves. It was shortly after Munger’s first 13F featuring Alibaba that internet communities focused on BABA really started to take off. Some were founded just days after the release.</p><p>Naturally, Munger’s apparent sale made a big splash. BABA has always been at least partially a Munger clone trade, and it appears that Munger’s conviction in the stock has diminished. Shortly after the 13F was released, investors took to Twitter offering opinions and running polls asking others about what had happened.</p><p>We may never know. But it doesn’t matter, because BABA ceased being a Munger clone trade long before the 13F came out. When Munger stepped down as Chairman of the Daily Journal, it created ambiguity as to the actual level of influence he will exercise over the firm’s portfolio going forward. The DJCO portfolio is no longer a Munger portfolio–or at least, not 100% a Munger portfolio. For this reason, investors will need a better thesis than “clone Munger because he is good.” In this article, I will attempt to advance such a thesis, based on valuation, competitive position and China&#39;s economic growth. First, though, let’s examine why it will not be possible to clone “Munger’s” BABA trades in future quarters.</p><p>Why Munger Can’t be Cloned Anymore</p><p>There are two reasons why it is impossible to clone Munger’s future BABA trades:</p><ol><li>Munger is no longer Chairman of the Daily Journal.</li><li>Some of DJCO’s potential trades are impossible to confirm.</li></ol><p>The first of these is easy enough to explain. When Munger was Chairman of the Daily Journal, he managed the investment portfolio. Now that he is no longer Chairman, he simply has the duties of a director. Munger could still volunteer to manage the portfolio, but the ultimate decisions would fall on Steven Myhill-Jones, the new CEO, or Tu To, the new CFO. The SEC filings announcing these new hires didn&#39;t say who&#39;d manage the portfolio.</p><p>The second reason why Munger can’t be cloned now is because some of his potential trades wouldn’t have to be disclosed. Munger is well known for not telling investors more than he has to. If he simply converted some of his NYSE ADRs to Hong Kong shares, as some think he did, then he is no longer under the obligation to report all of his holdings. As the SEC website states, you don’t have to disclose foreign listed shares in a 13F, even if your position is massive.</p><p><img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/5852b29d02869d997a4c8ce719caa59f\" tg-width=\"575\" tg-height=\"191\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\" width=\"100%\" height=\"auto\"/></p><p>What all this means is that cloning Munger’s BABA trades won’t be possible going forward. For those whose BABA position was little more than a Munger copycat, that has got to sting. Fortunately, the fundamentals-based thesis on the stock is not that difficult to comprehend, and can be explained in terms of four basic principles. In the next section I will explain that case in detail.</p><h2>The Bullish Thesis on BABA</h2><p>A strong bullish thesis on BABA can be built on four pillars:</p><ul><li>China’s economy.</li><li>BABA’s competitive position.</li><li>Financial health.</li><li>Valuation.</li></ul><p>I’ll look at each of these factors one by one, starting with China’s economy</p><h2>China’s Economy</h2><p>Despite the negative headlines you’re seeing these days, China’s economy is very strong. Its GDP growth was 8.1% in 2021. GDP has grown at 7.4% CAGR over 10 years. In 2020, when many countries entered recessions, China’s growth merely decelerated to 2.2%. With all of this growth, you might think that China is pumping itself full of debt. But think again! At 66.8, China’s government debt as a percentage of GDP is lower than that of the U.S., Canada, and the Eurozone. You may have heard stories about China’s “debt problem,” and claims of a 250% debt to GDP ratio. The figure is correct but it includes all debt, government and private. China’s government debt–the kind used to pay for fiscal stimulus–is low as a percentage of GDP. So China is growing very quickly and is fiscally sound enough to stimulate its economy should stimulation become necessary.</p><h2>BABA’s Competitive Position</h2><p>As we’ve seen, China has a high growth economy–the kind of economy that a company wants to operate in. That’s a great start but we still need to know about BABA’s competitive position.</p><p>As an eCommerce company, BABA has few rivals of similar scale. JD.com (JD) technically does more revenue than BABA does, but it has much smaller margins. It could beat Alibaba on scale but probably not on profitability. JD holds and sells inventory. It’s hard to beat a “platform” company like BABA when you have inventory costs. It eats into margins.</p><p>Pinduoduo (PDD) has been cited as a potential competitor to BABA but there’s just not much evidence of PDD moving beyond agricultural goods. Its group buying model has proven popular in China, but until it moves into other verticals, it’s not competing with huge chunks of Alibaba’s business.</p><p>Tencent (OTCPK:TCEHY) competes with BABA in one limited way: it has a payment app. The Chinese government forced BABA and Tencent to accept each other’s payment apps last year. So the competition between these two companies for share of payments has indeed increased.</p><h2>BABA’s Financials</h2><p>Alibaba’s long-term financials are excellent. The most recent calendar year was a bit of a departure from the long term trend, but that could turn around.</p><p>According to Seeking Alpha Quant, BABA’s five year CAGR growth rates in revenue, earnings and cash flows are:</p><ul><li>Revenue: 42%.</li><li>Net income: 11.3%.</li><li>Diluted EPS: 9.8%.</li><li>Free cash flow: 13.66%.</li></ul><p>These are pretty solid metrics. They were all much higher prior to this year, but the 2021 Chinese tech crackdown caused last year’s numbers to suffer. BABA did take some new costs in 2021, like a $2.8 billion fine and a higher tax rate. However, the fine was non-recurring and the higher tax rate could be “outgrown” with enough quarters of strong revenue gains.</p><p>At any rate, Alibaba has more than enough financial strength to ride out a few lacklustre quarters. Its balance sheet is one of the strongest in the world, boasting eye-popping metrics like:</p><ul><li>$276 billion in assets.</li><li>$100 billion in liabilities.</li><li>$176 billion in equity.</li><li>$45 billion in cash.</li><li>About $20 billion in debt (calculated from $5.09 billion in bonds $14.85 billion in long term bank loans).</li><li>$105 billion in current assets.</li><li>$64 billion in current liabilities.</li><li>A 0.2 debt to equity ratio.</li><li>A 1.64 current ratio.</li></ul><p>So we have debt that is very low as a proportion of shareholder equity, and high liquidity. Even BABA’s cash and equivalents outstrip its long term debt! This suggests a very solid balance sheet and a second-to-none ability to ride out a crisis.</p><h2>Valuation</h2><p>Valuation has always been one of the pillars on which the BABA bull case has rested. BABA stock is very cheap by almost every multiple you can think of. Some of its most encouraging value metrics include:</p><ul><li>Adjusted P/E: 11.</li><li>Price/sales: 1.96.</li><li>Price/book: 1.67.</li><li>Price/operating cash flow: 9.37.</li></ul><p>All of these multiples are comparatively low for the tech sector. For comparison, Amazon (AMZN), the closest comparable U.S. company, has a 46 adjusted P/E ratio.</p><p>BABA’s GAAP P/E ratio (25) is a little high, but the most recent quarter included large unrealized losses on the company’s stock portfolio. Adjusted earnings and cash from operations are more closely related to the company’s operating performance, and not surprisingly, they were much higher than GAAP earnings. This isn’t just selective choice of non-GAAP measures either: operating cash flow is a GAAP metric and Alibaba reports in accordance with U.S. GAAP.</p><p>As we’ve seen, Alibaba is cheap, profitable, and has high historical growth. Certainly this stock has many things to recommend it, even after Charlie Munger rode off into the sunset. However, there are still risks and challenges to the bullish thesis on Alibaba stock. </p><p>These are real risks that investors will need to keep in mind. But on balance, Alibaba looks like a solid value play today. It’s still growing its revenue, its cloud business is inching toward profitability, and its valuation is cheaper than ever before. On the whole, it looks like a sweet deal – with or without Munger on board.</p></body></html>","collect":0,"html":"<!DOCTYPE html>\n<html>\n<head>\n<meta http-equiv=\"Content-Type\" content=\"text/html; charset=utf-8\" />\n<meta name=\"viewport\" content=\"width=device-width,initial-scale=1.0,minimum-scale=1.0,maximum-scale=1.0,user-scalable=no\"/>\n<meta name=\"format-detection\" content=\"telephone=no,email=no,address=no\" />\n<title>Alibaba: Munger Is Not The Thesis</title>\n<style type=\"text/css\">\na,abbr,acronym,address,applet,article,aside,audio,b,big,blockquote,body,canvas,caption,center,cite,code,dd,del,details,dfn,div,dl,dt,\nem,embed,fieldset,figcaption,figure,footer,form,h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6,header,hgroup,html,i,iframe,img,ins,kbd,label,legend,li,mark,menu,nav,\nobject,ol,output,p,pre,q,ruby,s,samp,section,small,span,strike,strong,sub,summary,sup,table,tbody,td,tfoot,th,thead,time,tr,tt,u,ul,var,video{ font:inherit;margin:0;padding:0;vertical-align:baseline;border:0 }\nbody{ font-size:16px; line-height:1.5; color:#999; background:transparent; }\n.wrapper{ overflow:hidden;word-break:break-all;padding:10px; }\nh1,h2{ font-weight:normal; line-height:1.35; margin-bottom:.6em; }\nh3,h4,h5,h6{ line-height:1.35; margin-bottom:1em; }\nh1{ font-size:24px; }\nh2{ font-size:20px; }\nh3{ font-size:18px; }\nh4{ font-size:16px; }\nh5{ font-size:14px; }\nh6{ font-size:12px; }\np,ul,ol,blockquote,dl,table{ margin:1.2em 0; }\nul,ol{ margin-left:2em; }\nul{ list-style:disc; }\nol{ list-style:decimal; }\nli,li p{ margin:10px 0;}\nimg{ max-width:100%;display:block;margin:0 auto 1em; }\nblockquote{ color:#B5B2B1; border-left:3px solid #aaa; padding:1em; }\nstrong,b{font-weight:bold;}\nem,i{font-style:italic;}\ntable{ width:100%;border-collapse:collapse;border-spacing:1px;margin:1em 0;font-size:.9em; }\nth,td{ padding:5px;text-align:left;border:1px solid #aaa; }\nth{ font-weight:bold;background:#5d5d5d; }\n.symbol-link{font-weight:bold;}\n/* header{ border-bottom:1px solid #494756; } */\n.title{ margin:0 0 8px;line-height:1.3;color:#ddd; }\n.meta {color:#5e5c6d;font-size:13px;margin:0 0 .5em; }\na{text-decoration:none; color:#2a4b87;}\n.meta .head { display: inline-block; overflow: hidden}\n.head .h-thumb { width: 30px; height: 30px; margin: 0; padding: 0; border-radius: 50%; float: left;}\n.head .h-content { margin: 0; padding: 0 0 0 9px; float: left;}\n.head .h-name {font-size: 13px; color: #eee; margin: 0;}\n.head .h-time {font-size: 11px; color: #7E829C; margin: 0;line-height: 11px;}\n.small {font-size: 12.5px; display: inline-block; transform: scale(0.9); -webkit-transform: scale(0.9); transform-origin: left; -webkit-transform-origin: left;}\n.smaller {font-size: 12.5px; display: inline-block; transform: scale(0.8); -webkit-transform: scale(0.8); transform-origin: left; -webkit-transform-origin: left;}\n.bt-text {font-size: 12px;margin: 1.5em 0 0 0}\n.bt-text p {margin: 0}\n</style>\n</head>\n<body>\n<div class=\"wrapper\">\n<header>\n<h2 class=\"title\">\nAlibaba: Munger Is Not The Thesis\n</h2>\n\n<h4 class=\"meta\">\n\n\n2022-04-18 13:16 GMT+8&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href=https://seekingalpha.com/article/4501707-alibaba-munger-not-thesis><strong>Seeking Alpha</strong></a>\n\n\n</h4>\n\n</header>\n<article>\n<div>\n<p>SummaryRecently the Daily Journal's 13F revealed that the company trimmed its Alibaba position by 50%.It isn't necessarily the case that former Chairman Charlie Munger sold due to weakening conviction...</p>\n\n<a href=\"https://seekingalpha.com/article/4501707-alibaba-munger-not-thesis\">Web Link</a>\n\n</div>\n\n\n</article>\n</div>\n</body>\n</html>\n","type":0,"thumbnail":"","relate_stocks":{"BABA":"阿里巴巴"},"source_url":"https://seekingalpha.com/article/4501707-alibaba-munger-not-thesis","is_english":true,"share_image_url":"https://static.laohu8.com/e9f99090a1c2ed51c021029395664489","article_id":"1110595663","content_text":"SummaryRecently the Daily Journal's 13F revealed that the company trimmed its Alibaba position by 50%.It isn't necessarily the case that former Chairman Charlie Munger sold due to weakening conviction on BABA stock itself.However, Munger IS out of the picture in one very real way: he is no longer the Daily Journal's Chairman.For this reason, Alibaba can no longer be considered a Munger copy trade.In this article, I develop a fundamentals-based thesis for those who cloned Munger and now aren't sure what to do.Charlie Munger’s Alibaba Group (NYSE:BABA) investment was the talk of the town last week. In its Q1 13F, the Daily Journal Corp (DJCO) revealed that it had sold 50% of its stake in the Chinese tech company, after several quarters of averaging down. It wasn’t immediately clear whether Munger himself made the decision to sell the shares, as he had stepped down just days before the end of the quarter. Tu To was elected to serve as the company’s CFO on March 22. She signed all of the company’s SEC filings from the 22nd onward.There are many reasons why Munger (or somebody else) might have chosen to sell Alibaba. Not all of them necessarily reflect lower conviction in the stock. It’s possible that DJCO converted some of its NYSE shares to Hong Kong shares, or sold to cover a margin loan. Munger hasn’t spoken on the matter publicly yet, nor have any other DJCO officers, so we don’t know.Charlie Munger is thought to have influenced many investors who bought BABA stock in 2021. He began buying the stock around $226, averaging down after that. Many other investors made similar moves. It was shortly after Munger’s first 13F featuring Alibaba that internet communities focused on BABA really started to take off. Some were founded just days after the release.Naturally, Munger’s apparent sale made a big splash. BABA has always been at least partially a Munger clone trade, and it appears that Munger’s conviction in the stock has diminished. Shortly after the 13F was released, investors took to Twitter offering opinions and running polls asking others about what had happened.We may never know. But it doesn’t matter, because BABA ceased being a Munger clone trade long before the 13F came out. When Munger stepped down as Chairman of the Daily Journal, it created ambiguity as to the actual level of influence he will exercise over the firm’s portfolio going forward. The DJCO portfolio is no longer a Munger portfolio–or at least, not 100% a Munger portfolio. For this reason, investors will need a better thesis than “clone Munger because he is good.” In this article, I will attempt to advance such a thesis, based on valuation, competitive position and China's economic growth. First, though, let’s examine why it will not be possible to clone “Munger’s” BABA trades in future quarters.Why Munger Can’t be Cloned AnymoreThere are two reasons why it is impossible to clone Munger’s future BABA trades:Munger is no longer Chairman of the Daily Journal.Some of DJCO’s potential trades are impossible to confirm.The first of these is easy enough to explain. When Munger was Chairman of the Daily Journal, he managed the investment portfolio. Now that he is no longer Chairman, he simply has the duties of a director. Munger could still volunteer to manage the portfolio, but the ultimate decisions would fall on Steven Myhill-Jones, the new CEO, or Tu To, the new CFO. The SEC filings announcing these new hires didn't say who'd manage the portfolio.The second reason why Munger can’t be cloned now is because some of his potential trades wouldn’t have to be disclosed. Munger is well known for not telling investors more than he has to. If he simply converted some of his NYSE ADRs to Hong Kong shares, as some think he did, then he is no longer under the obligation to report all of his holdings. As the SEC website states, you don’t have to disclose foreign listed shares in a 13F, even if your position is massive.What all this means is that cloning Munger’s BABA trades won’t be possible going forward. For those whose BABA position was little more than a Munger copycat, that has got to sting. Fortunately, the fundamentals-based thesis on the stock is not that difficult to comprehend, and can be explained in terms of four basic principles. In the next section I will explain that case in detail.The Bullish Thesis on BABAA strong bullish thesis on BABA can be built on four pillars:China’s economy.BABA’s competitive position.Financial health.Valuation.I’ll look at each of these factors one by one, starting with China’s economyChina’s EconomyDespite the negative headlines you’re seeing these days, China’s economy is very strong. Its GDP growth was 8.1% in 2021. GDP has grown at 7.4% CAGR over 10 years. In 2020, when many countries entered recessions, China’s growth merely decelerated to 2.2%. With all of this growth, you might think that China is pumping itself full of debt. But think again! At 66.8, China’s government debt as a percentage of GDP is lower than that of the U.S., Canada, and the Eurozone. You may have heard stories about China’s “debt problem,” and claims of a 250% debt to GDP ratio. The figure is correct but it includes all debt, government and private. China’s government debt–the kind used to pay for fiscal stimulus–is low as a percentage of GDP. So China is growing very quickly and is fiscally sound enough to stimulate its economy should stimulation become necessary.BABA’s Competitive PositionAs we’ve seen, China has a high growth economy–the kind of economy that a company wants to operate in. That’s a great start but we still need to know about BABA’s competitive position.As an eCommerce company, BABA has few rivals of similar scale. JD.com (JD) technically does more revenue than BABA does, but it has much smaller margins. It could beat Alibaba on scale but probably not on profitability. JD holds and sells inventory. It’s hard to beat a “platform” company like BABA when you have inventory costs. It eats into margins.Pinduoduo (PDD) has been cited as a potential competitor to BABA but there’s just not much evidence of PDD moving beyond agricultural goods. Its group buying model has proven popular in China, but until it moves into other verticals, it’s not competing with huge chunks of Alibaba’s business.Tencent (OTCPK:TCEHY) competes with BABA in one limited way: it has a payment app. The Chinese government forced BABA and Tencent to accept each other’s payment apps last year. So the competition between these two companies for share of payments has indeed increased.BABA’s FinancialsAlibaba’s long-term financials are excellent. The most recent calendar year was a bit of a departure from the long term trend, but that could turn around.According to Seeking Alpha Quant, BABA’s five year CAGR growth rates in revenue, earnings and cash flows are:Revenue: 42%.Net income: 11.3%.Diluted EPS: 9.8%.Free cash flow: 13.66%.These are pretty solid metrics. They were all much higher prior to this year, but the 2021 Chinese tech crackdown caused last year’s numbers to suffer. BABA did take some new costs in 2021, like a $2.8 billion fine and a higher tax rate. However, the fine was non-recurring and the higher tax rate could be “outgrown” with enough quarters of strong revenue gains.At any rate, Alibaba has more than enough financial strength to ride out a few lacklustre quarters. Its balance sheet is one of the strongest in the world, boasting eye-popping metrics like:$276 billion in assets.$100 billion in liabilities.$176 billion in equity.$45 billion in cash.About $20 billion in debt (calculated from $5.09 billion in bonds $14.85 billion in long term bank loans).$105 billion in current assets.$64 billion in current liabilities.A 0.2 debt to equity ratio.A 1.64 current ratio.So we have debt that is very low as a proportion of shareholder equity, and high liquidity. Even BABA’s cash and equivalents outstrip its long term debt! This suggests a very solid balance sheet and a second-to-none ability to ride out a crisis.ValuationValuation has always been one of the pillars on which the BABA bull case has rested. BABA stock is very cheap by almost every multiple you can think of. Some of its most encouraging value metrics include:Adjusted P/E: 11.Price/sales: 1.96.Price/book: 1.67.Price/operating cash flow: 9.37.All of these multiples are comparatively low for the tech sector. For comparison, Amazon (AMZN), the closest comparable U.S. company, has a 46 adjusted P/E ratio.BABA’s GAAP P/E ratio (25) is a little high, but the most recent quarter included large unrealized losses on the company’s stock portfolio. Adjusted earnings and cash from operations are more closely related to the company’s operating performance, and not surprisingly, they were much higher than GAAP earnings. This isn’t just selective choice of non-GAAP measures either: operating cash flow is a GAAP metric and Alibaba reports in accordance with U.S. GAAP.As we’ve seen, Alibaba is cheap, profitable, and has high historical growth. Certainly this stock has many things to recommend it, even after Charlie Munger rode off into the sunset. However, there are still risks and challenges to the bullish thesis on Alibaba stock. These are real risks that investors will need to keep in mind. But on balance, Alibaba looks like a solid value play today. It’s still growing its revenue, its cloud business is inching toward profitability, and its valuation is cheaper than ever before. On the whole, it looks like a sweet deal – with or without Munger on board.","news_type":1},"isVote":1,"likeStatus":false,"favoriteStatus":false,"reportStatus":false,"tweetType":1,"langContent":"EN"},{"id":9081457915,"gmtCreate":1650270786985,"gmtModify":1676534683383,"author":{"id":"3586907191866715","authorId":"3586907191866715","name":"SmartHunter","avatar":"https://static.tigerbbs.com/69402f0b380884d842e640f724fb7467","vip":1,"hat":"https://static.tigerbbs.com/a3dee1aa3a3a3c1814833a4d3f8a5669","crmLevel":5,"crmLevelSwitch":1},"htmlText":"Daym. Baba is forever","listText":"Daym. Baba is forever","text":"Daym. Baba is forever","images":[],"top":1,"highlighted":1,"essential":1,"paper":1,"likeSize":4,"commentSize":0,"repostSize":0,"link":"https://ttm.financial/post/9081457915","repostId":1110595663,"repostType":2,"repost":{"id":"1110595663","pubTimestamp":1650258996,"share":"https://www.laohu8.com/m/news/1110595663?lang=&edition=full","pubTime":"2022-04-18 13:16","market":"us","language":"en","title":"Alibaba: Munger Is Not The Thesis","url":"https://stock-news.laohu8.com/highlight/detail?id=1110595663","media":"Seeking Alpha","summary":"SummaryRecently the Daily Journal's 13F revealed that the company trimmed its Alibaba position by 50%.It isn't necessarily the case that former Chairman Charlie Munger sold due to weakening conviction","content":"<html><head></head><body><p>Summary</p><ul><li>Recently the Daily Journal&#39;s 13F revealed that the company trimmed its Alibaba position by 50%.</li><li>It isn&#39;t necessarily the case that former Chairman Charlie Munger sold due to weakening conviction on BABA stock itself.</li><li>However, Munger IS out of the picture in one very real way: he is no longer the Daily Journal&#39;s Chairman.</li><li>For this reason, Alibaba can no longer be considered a Munger copy trade.</li><li>In this article, I develop a fundamentals-based thesis for those who cloned Munger and now aren&#39;t sure what to do.</li></ul><p>Charlie Munger’s Alibaba Group (NYSE:BABA) investment was the talk of the town last week. In its Q1 13F, the Daily Journal Corp (DJCO) revealed that it had sold 50% of its stake in the Chinese tech company, after several quarters of averaging down. It wasn’t immediately clear whether Munger himself made the decision to sell the shares, as he had stepped down just days before the end of the quarter. Tu To was elected to serve as the company’s CFO on March 22. She signed all of the company’s SEC filings from the 22nd onward.</p><p>There are many reasons why Munger (or somebody else) might have chosen to sell Alibaba. Not all of them necessarily reflect lower conviction in the stock. It’s possible that DJCO converted some of its NYSE shares to Hong Kong shares, or sold to cover a margin loan. Munger hasn’t spoken on the matter publicly yet, nor have any other DJCO officers, so we don’t know.</p><p>Charlie Munger is thought to have influenced many investors who bought BABA stock in 2021. He began buying the stock around $226, averaging down after that. Many other investors made similar moves. It was shortly after Munger’s first 13F featuring Alibaba that internet communities focused on BABA really started to take off. Some were founded just days after the release.</p><p>Naturally, Munger’s apparent sale made a big splash. BABA has always been at least partially a Munger clone trade, and it appears that Munger’s conviction in the stock has diminished. Shortly after the 13F was released, investors took to Twitter offering opinions and running polls asking others about what had happened.</p><p>We may never know. But it doesn’t matter, because BABA ceased being a Munger clone trade long before the 13F came out. When Munger stepped down as Chairman of the Daily Journal, it created ambiguity as to the actual level of influence he will exercise over the firm’s portfolio going forward. The DJCO portfolio is no longer a Munger portfolio–or at least, not 100% a Munger portfolio. For this reason, investors will need a better thesis than “clone Munger because he is good.” In this article, I will attempt to advance such a thesis, based on valuation, competitive position and China&#39;s economic growth. First, though, let’s examine why it will not be possible to clone “Munger’s” BABA trades in future quarters.</p><p>Why Munger Can’t be Cloned Anymore</p><p>There are two reasons why it is impossible to clone Munger’s future BABA trades:</p><ol><li>Munger is no longer Chairman of the Daily Journal.</li><li>Some of DJCO’s potential trades are impossible to confirm.</li></ol><p>The first of these is easy enough to explain. When Munger was Chairman of the Daily Journal, he managed the investment portfolio. Now that he is no longer Chairman, he simply has the duties of a director. Munger could still volunteer to manage the portfolio, but the ultimate decisions would fall on Steven Myhill-Jones, the new CEO, or Tu To, the new CFO. The SEC filings announcing these new hires didn&#39;t say who&#39;d manage the portfolio.</p><p>The second reason why Munger can’t be cloned now is because some of his potential trades wouldn’t have to be disclosed. Munger is well known for not telling investors more than he has to. If he simply converted some of his NYSE ADRs to Hong Kong shares, as some think he did, then he is no longer under the obligation to report all of his holdings. As the SEC website states, you don’t have to disclose foreign listed shares in a 13F, even if your position is massive.</p><p><img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/5852b29d02869d997a4c8ce719caa59f\" tg-width=\"575\" tg-height=\"191\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\" width=\"100%\" height=\"auto\"/></p><p>What all this means is that cloning Munger’s BABA trades won’t be possible going forward. For those whose BABA position was little more than a Munger copycat, that has got to sting. Fortunately, the fundamentals-based thesis on the stock is not that difficult to comprehend, and can be explained in terms of four basic principles. In the next section I will explain that case in detail.</p><h2>The Bullish Thesis on BABA</h2><p>A strong bullish thesis on BABA can be built on four pillars:</p><ul><li>China’s economy.</li><li>BABA’s competitive position.</li><li>Financial health.</li><li>Valuation.</li></ul><p>I’ll look at each of these factors one by one, starting with China’s economy</p><h2>China’s Economy</h2><p>Despite the negative headlines you’re seeing these days, China’s economy is very strong. Its GDP growth was 8.1% in 2021. GDP has grown at 7.4% CAGR over 10 years. In 2020, when many countries entered recessions, China’s growth merely decelerated to 2.2%. With all of this growth, you might think that China is pumping itself full of debt. But think again! At 66.8, China’s government debt as a percentage of GDP is lower than that of the U.S., Canada, and the Eurozone. You may have heard stories about China’s “debt problem,” and claims of a 250% debt to GDP ratio. The figure is correct but it includes all debt, government and private. China’s government debt–the kind used to pay for fiscal stimulus–is low as a percentage of GDP. So China is growing very quickly and is fiscally sound enough to stimulate its economy should stimulation become necessary.</p><h2>BABA’s Competitive Position</h2><p>As we’ve seen, China has a high growth economy–the kind of economy that a company wants to operate in. That’s a great start but we still need to know about BABA’s competitive position.</p><p>As an eCommerce company, BABA has few rivals of similar scale. JD.com (JD) technically does more revenue than BABA does, but it has much smaller margins. It could beat Alibaba on scale but probably not on profitability. JD holds and sells inventory. It’s hard to beat a “platform” company like BABA when you have inventory costs. It eats into margins.</p><p>Pinduoduo (PDD) has been cited as a potential competitor to BABA but there’s just not much evidence of PDD moving beyond agricultural goods. Its group buying model has proven popular in China, but until it moves into other verticals, it’s not competing with huge chunks of Alibaba’s business.</p><p>Tencent (OTCPK:TCEHY) competes with BABA in one limited way: it has a payment app. The Chinese government forced BABA and Tencent to accept each other’s payment apps last year. So the competition between these two companies for share of payments has indeed increased.</p><h2>BABA’s Financials</h2><p>Alibaba’s long-term financials are excellent. The most recent calendar year was a bit of a departure from the long term trend, but that could turn around.</p><p>According to Seeking Alpha Quant, BABA’s five year CAGR growth rates in revenue, earnings and cash flows are:</p><ul><li>Revenue: 42%.</li><li>Net income: 11.3%.</li><li>Diluted EPS: 9.8%.</li><li>Free cash flow: 13.66%.</li></ul><p>These are pretty solid metrics. They were all much higher prior to this year, but the 2021 Chinese tech crackdown caused last year’s numbers to suffer. BABA did take some new costs in 2021, like a $2.8 billion fine and a higher tax rate. However, the fine was non-recurring and the higher tax rate could be “outgrown” with enough quarters of strong revenue gains.</p><p>At any rate, Alibaba has more than enough financial strength to ride out a few lacklustre quarters. Its balance sheet is one of the strongest in the world, boasting eye-popping metrics like:</p><ul><li>$276 billion in assets.</li><li>$100 billion in liabilities.</li><li>$176 billion in equity.</li><li>$45 billion in cash.</li><li>About $20 billion in debt (calculated from $5.09 billion in bonds $14.85 billion in long term bank loans).</li><li>$105 billion in current assets.</li><li>$64 billion in current liabilities.</li><li>A 0.2 debt to equity ratio.</li><li>A 1.64 current ratio.</li></ul><p>So we have debt that is very low as a proportion of shareholder equity, and high liquidity. Even BABA’s cash and equivalents outstrip its long term debt! This suggests a very solid balance sheet and a second-to-none ability to ride out a crisis.</p><h2>Valuation</h2><p>Valuation has always been one of the pillars on which the BABA bull case has rested. BABA stock is very cheap by almost every multiple you can think of. Some of its most encouraging value metrics include:</p><ul><li>Adjusted P/E: 11.</li><li>Price/sales: 1.96.</li><li>Price/book: 1.67.</li><li>Price/operating cash flow: 9.37.</li></ul><p>All of these multiples are comparatively low for the tech sector. For comparison, Amazon (AMZN), the closest comparable U.S. company, has a 46 adjusted P/E ratio.</p><p>BABA’s GAAP P/E ratio (25) is a little high, but the most recent quarter included large unrealized losses on the company’s stock portfolio. Adjusted earnings and cash from operations are more closely related to the company’s operating performance, and not surprisingly, they were much higher than GAAP earnings. This isn’t just selective choice of non-GAAP measures either: operating cash flow is a GAAP metric and Alibaba reports in accordance with U.S. GAAP.</p><p>As we’ve seen, Alibaba is cheap, profitable, and has high historical growth. Certainly this stock has many things to recommend it, even after Charlie Munger rode off into the sunset. However, there are still risks and challenges to the bullish thesis on Alibaba stock. </p><p>These are real risks that investors will need to keep in mind. But on balance, Alibaba looks like a solid value play today. It’s still growing its revenue, its cloud business is inching toward profitability, and its valuation is cheaper than ever before. On the whole, it looks like a sweet deal – with or without Munger on board.</p></body></html>","collect":0,"html":"<!DOCTYPE html>\n<html>\n<head>\n<meta http-equiv=\"Content-Type\" content=\"text/html; charset=utf-8\" />\n<meta name=\"viewport\" content=\"width=device-width,initial-scale=1.0,minimum-scale=1.0,maximum-scale=1.0,user-scalable=no\"/>\n<meta name=\"format-detection\" content=\"telephone=no,email=no,address=no\" />\n<title>Alibaba: Munger Is Not The Thesis</title>\n<style type=\"text/css\">\na,abbr,acronym,address,applet,article,aside,audio,b,big,blockquote,body,canvas,caption,center,cite,code,dd,del,details,dfn,div,dl,dt,\nem,embed,fieldset,figcaption,figure,footer,form,h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6,header,hgroup,html,i,iframe,img,ins,kbd,label,legend,li,mark,menu,nav,\nobject,ol,output,p,pre,q,ruby,s,samp,section,small,span,strike,strong,sub,summary,sup,table,tbody,td,tfoot,th,thead,time,tr,tt,u,ul,var,video{ font:inherit;margin:0;padding:0;vertical-align:baseline;border:0 }\nbody{ font-size:16px; line-height:1.5; color:#999; background:transparent; }\n.wrapper{ overflow:hidden;word-break:break-all;padding:10px; }\nh1,h2{ font-weight:normal; line-height:1.35; margin-bottom:.6em; }\nh3,h4,h5,h6{ line-height:1.35; margin-bottom:1em; }\nh1{ font-size:24px; }\nh2{ font-size:20px; }\nh3{ font-size:18px; }\nh4{ font-size:16px; }\nh5{ font-size:14px; }\nh6{ font-size:12px; }\np,ul,ol,blockquote,dl,table{ margin:1.2em 0; }\nul,ol{ margin-left:2em; }\nul{ list-style:disc; }\nol{ list-style:decimal; }\nli,li p{ margin:10px 0;}\nimg{ max-width:100%;display:block;margin:0 auto 1em; }\nblockquote{ color:#B5B2B1; border-left:3px solid #aaa; padding:1em; }\nstrong,b{font-weight:bold;}\nem,i{font-style:italic;}\ntable{ width:100%;border-collapse:collapse;border-spacing:1px;margin:1em 0;font-size:.9em; }\nth,td{ padding:5px;text-align:left;border:1px solid #aaa; }\nth{ font-weight:bold;background:#5d5d5d; }\n.symbol-link{font-weight:bold;}\n/* header{ border-bottom:1px solid #494756; } */\n.title{ margin:0 0 8px;line-height:1.3;color:#ddd; }\n.meta {color:#5e5c6d;font-size:13px;margin:0 0 .5em; }\na{text-decoration:none; color:#2a4b87;}\n.meta .head { display: inline-block; overflow: hidden}\n.head .h-thumb { width: 30px; height: 30px; margin: 0; padding: 0; border-radius: 50%; float: left;}\n.head .h-content { margin: 0; padding: 0 0 0 9px; float: left;}\n.head .h-name {font-size: 13px; color: #eee; margin: 0;}\n.head .h-time {font-size: 11px; color: #7E829C; margin: 0;line-height: 11px;}\n.small {font-size: 12.5px; display: inline-block; transform: scale(0.9); -webkit-transform: scale(0.9); transform-origin: left; -webkit-transform-origin: left;}\n.smaller {font-size: 12.5px; display: inline-block; transform: scale(0.8); -webkit-transform: scale(0.8); transform-origin: left; -webkit-transform-origin: left;}\n.bt-text {font-size: 12px;margin: 1.5em 0 0 0}\n.bt-text p {margin: 0}\n</style>\n</head>\n<body>\n<div class=\"wrapper\">\n<header>\n<h2 class=\"title\">\nAlibaba: Munger Is Not The Thesis\n</h2>\n\n<h4 class=\"meta\">\n\n\n2022-04-18 13:16 GMT+8&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href=https://seekingalpha.com/article/4501707-alibaba-munger-not-thesis><strong>Seeking Alpha</strong></a>\n\n\n</h4>\n\n</header>\n<article>\n<div>\n<p>SummaryRecently the Daily Journal's 13F revealed that the company trimmed its Alibaba position by 50%.It isn't necessarily the case that former Chairman Charlie Munger sold due to weakening conviction...</p>\n\n<a href=\"https://seekingalpha.com/article/4501707-alibaba-munger-not-thesis\">Web Link</a>\n\n</div>\n\n\n</article>\n</div>\n</body>\n</html>\n","type":0,"thumbnail":"","relate_stocks":{"BABA":"阿里巴巴"},"source_url":"https://seekingalpha.com/article/4501707-alibaba-munger-not-thesis","is_english":true,"share_image_url":"https://static.laohu8.com/e9f99090a1c2ed51c021029395664489","article_id":"1110595663","content_text":"SummaryRecently the Daily Journal's 13F revealed that the company trimmed its Alibaba position by 50%.It isn't necessarily the case that former Chairman Charlie Munger sold due to weakening conviction on BABA stock itself.However, Munger IS out of the picture in one very real way: he is no longer the Daily Journal's Chairman.For this reason, Alibaba can no longer be considered a Munger copy trade.In this article, I develop a fundamentals-based thesis for those who cloned Munger and now aren't sure what to do.Charlie Munger’s Alibaba Group (NYSE:BABA) investment was the talk of the town last week. In its Q1 13F, the Daily Journal Corp (DJCO) revealed that it had sold 50% of its stake in the Chinese tech company, after several quarters of averaging down. It wasn’t immediately clear whether Munger himself made the decision to sell the shares, as he had stepped down just days before the end of the quarter. Tu To was elected to serve as the company’s CFO on March 22. She signed all of the company’s SEC filings from the 22nd onward.There are many reasons why Munger (or somebody else) might have chosen to sell Alibaba. Not all of them necessarily reflect lower conviction in the stock. It’s possible that DJCO converted some of its NYSE shares to Hong Kong shares, or sold to cover a margin loan. Munger hasn’t spoken on the matter publicly yet, nor have any other DJCO officers, so we don’t know.Charlie Munger is thought to have influenced many investors who bought BABA stock in 2021. He began buying the stock around $226, averaging down after that. Many other investors made similar moves. It was shortly after Munger’s first 13F featuring Alibaba that internet communities focused on BABA really started to take off. Some were founded just days after the release.Naturally, Munger’s apparent sale made a big splash. BABA has always been at least partially a Munger clone trade, and it appears that Munger’s conviction in the stock has diminished. Shortly after the 13F was released, investors took to Twitter offering opinions and running polls asking others about what had happened.We may never know. But it doesn’t matter, because BABA ceased being a Munger clone trade long before the 13F came out. When Munger stepped down as Chairman of the Daily Journal, it created ambiguity as to the actual level of influence he will exercise over the firm’s portfolio going forward. The DJCO portfolio is no longer a Munger portfolio–or at least, not 100% a Munger portfolio. For this reason, investors will need a better thesis than “clone Munger because he is good.” In this article, I will attempt to advance such a thesis, based on valuation, competitive position and China's economic growth. First, though, let’s examine why it will not be possible to clone “Munger’s” BABA trades in future quarters.Why Munger Can’t be Cloned AnymoreThere are two reasons why it is impossible to clone Munger’s future BABA trades:Munger is no longer Chairman of the Daily Journal.Some of DJCO’s potential trades are impossible to confirm.The first of these is easy enough to explain. When Munger was Chairman of the Daily Journal, he managed the investment portfolio. Now that he is no longer Chairman, he simply has the duties of a director. Munger could still volunteer to manage the portfolio, but the ultimate decisions would fall on Steven Myhill-Jones, the new CEO, or Tu To, the new CFO. The SEC filings announcing these new hires didn't say who'd manage the portfolio.The second reason why Munger can’t be cloned now is because some of his potential trades wouldn’t have to be disclosed. Munger is well known for not telling investors more than he has to. If he simply converted some of his NYSE ADRs to Hong Kong shares, as some think he did, then he is no longer under the obligation to report all of his holdings. As the SEC website states, you don’t have to disclose foreign listed shares in a 13F, even if your position is massive.What all this means is that cloning Munger’s BABA trades won’t be possible going forward. For those whose BABA position was little more than a Munger copycat, that has got to sting. Fortunately, the fundamentals-based thesis on the stock is not that difficult to comprehend, and can be explained in terms of four basic principles. In the next section I will explain that case in detail.The Bullish Thesis on BABAA strong bullish thesis on BABA can be built on four pillars:China’s economy.BABA’s competitive position.Financial health.Valuation.I’ll look at each of these factors one by one, starting with China’s economyChina’s EconomyDespite the negative headlines you’re seeing these days, China’s economy is very strong. Its GDP growth was 8.1% in 2021. GDP has grown at 7.4% CAGR over 10 years. In 2020, when many countries entered recessions, China’s growth merely decelerated to 2.2%. With all of this growth, you might think that China is pumping itself full of debt. But think again! At 66.8, China’s government debt as a percentage of GDP is lower than that of the U.S., Canada, and the Eurozone. You may have heard stories about China’s “debt problem,” and claims of a 250% debt to GDP ratio. The figure is correct but it includes all debt, government and private. China’s government debt–the kind used to pay for fiscal stimulus–is low as a percentage of GDP. So China is growing very quickly and is fiscally sound enough to stimulate its economy should stimulation become necessary.BABA’s Competitive PositionAs we’ve seen, China has a high growth economy–the kind of economy that a company wants to operate in. That’s a great start but we still need to know about BABA’s competitive position.As an eCommerce company, BABA has few rivals of similar scale. JD.com (JD) technically does more revenue than BABA does, but it has much smaller margins. It could beat Alibaba on scale but probably not on profitability. JD holds and sells inventory. It’s hard to beat a “platform” company like BABA when you have inventory costs. It eats into margins.Pinduoduo (PDD) has been cited as a potential competitor to BABA but there’s just not much evidence of PDD moving beyond agricultural goods. Its group buying model has proven popular in China, but until it moves into other verticals, it’s not competing with huge chunks of Alibaba’s business.Tencent (OTCPK:TCEHY) competes with BABA in one limited way: it has a payment app. The Chinese government forced BABA and Tencent to accept each other’s payment apps last year. So the competition between these two companies for share of payments has indeed increased.BABA’s FinancialsAlibaba’s long-term financials are excellent. The most recent calendar year was a bit of a departure from the long term trend, but that could turn around.According to Seeking Alpha Quant, BABA’s five year CAGR growth rates in revenue, earnings and cash flows are:Revenue: 42%.Net income: 11.3%.Diluted EPS: 9.8%.Free cash flow: 13.66%.These are pretty solid metrics. They were all much higher prior to this year, but the 2021 Chinese tech crackdown caused last year’s numbers to suffer. BABA did take some new costs in 2021, like a $2.8 billion fine and a higher tax rate. However, the fine was non-recurring and the higher tax rate could be “outgrown” with enough quarters of strong revenue gains.At any rate, Alibaba has more than enough financial strength to ride out a few lacklustre quarters. Its balance sheet is one of the strongest in the world, boasting eye-popping metrics like:$276 billion in assets.$100 billion in liabilities.$176 billion in equity.$45 billion in cash.About $20 billion in debt (calculated from $5.09 billion in bonds $14.85 billion in long term bank loans).$105 billion in current assets.$64 billion in current liabilities.A 0.2 debt to equity ratio.A 1.64 current ratio.So we have debt that is very low as a proportion of shareholder equity, and high liquidity. Even BABA’s cash and equivalents outstrip its long term debt! This suggests a very solid balance sheet and a second-to-none ability to ride out a crisis.ValuationValuation has always been one of the pillars on which the BABA bull case has rested. BABA stock is very cheap by almost every multiple you can think of. Some of its most encouraging value metrics include:Adjusted P/E: 11.Price/sales: 1.96.Price/book: 1.67.Price/operating cash flow: 9.37.All of these multiples are comparatively low for the tech sector. For comparison, Amazon (AMZN), the closest comparable U.S. company, has a 46 adjusted P/E ratio.BABA’s GAAP P/E ratio (25) is a little high, but the most recent quarter included large unrealized losses on the company’s stock portfolio. Adjusted earnings and cash from operations are more closely related to the company’s operating performance, and not surprisingly, they were much higher than GAAP earnings. This isn’t just selective choice of non-GAAP measures either: operating cash flow is a GAAP metric and Alibaba reports in accordance with U.S. GAAP.As we’ve seen, Alibaba is cheap, profitable, and has high historical growth. Certainly this stock has many things to recommend it, even after Charlie Munger rode off into the sunset. However, there are still risks and challenges to the bullish thesis on Alibaba stock. These are real risks that investors will need to keep in mind. But on balance, Alibaba looks like a solid value play today. It’s still growing its revenue, its cloud business is inching toward profitability, and its valuation is cheaper than ever before. On the whole, it looks like a sweet deal – with or without Munger on board.","news_type":1},"isVote":1,"likeStatus":false,"favoriteStatus":false,"reportStatus":false,"tweetType":1,"langContent":"EN"},{"id":9081459842,"gmtCreate":1650269756734,"gmtModify":1676534683186,"author":{"id":"3581726861154705","authorId":"3581726861154705","name":"Jaden994","avatar":"https://static.laohu8.com/default-avatar.jpg","vip":1,"crmLevel":2,"crmLevelSwitch":0},"htmlText":"Pls like","listText":"Pls like","text":"Pls like","images":[],"top":1,"highlighted":1,"essential":1,"paper":1,"likeSize":2,"commentSize":0,"repostSize":0,"link":"https://ttm.financial/post/9081459842","repostId":1110595663,"repostType":2,"repost":{"id":"1110595663","pubTimestamp":1650258996,"share":"https://www.laohu8.com/m/news/1110595663?lang=&edition=full","pubTime":"2022-04-18 13:16","market":"us","language":"en","title":"Alibaba: Munger Is Not The Thesis","url":"https://stock-news.laohu8.com/highlight/detail?id=1110595663","media":"Seeking Alpha","summary":"SummaryRecently the Daily Journal's 13F revealed that the company trimmed its Alibaba position by 50%.It isn't necessarily the case that former Chairman Charlie Munger sold due to weakening conviction","content":"<html><head></head><body><p>Summary</p><ul><li>Recently the Daily Journal&#39;s 13F revealed that the company trimmed its Alibaba position by 50%.</li><li>It isn&#39;t necessarily the case that former Chairman Charlie Munger sold due to weakening conviction on BABA stock itself.</li><li>However, Munger IS out of the picture in one very real way: he is no longer the Daily Journal&#39;s Chairman.</li><li>For this reason, Alibaba can no longer be considered a Munger copy trade.</li><li>In this article, I develop a fundamentals-based thesis for those who cloned Munger and now aren&#39;t sure what to do.</li></ul><p>Charlie Munger’s Alibaba Group (NYSE:BABA) investment was the talk of the town last week. In its Q1 13F, the Daily Journal Corp (DJCO) revealed that it had sold 50% of its stake in the Chinese tech company, after several quarters of averaging down. It wasn’t immediately clear whether Munger himself made the decision to sell the shares, as he had stepped down just days before the end of the quarter. Tu To was elected to serve as the company’s CFO on March 22. She signed all of the company’s SEC filings from the 22nd onward.</p><p>There are many reasons why Munger (or somebody else) might have chosen to sell Alibaba. Not all of them necessarily reflect lower conviction in the stock. It’s possible that DJCO converted some of its NYSE shares to Hong Kong shares, or sold to cover a margin loan. Munger hasn’t spoken on the matter publicly yet, nor have any other DJCO officers, so we don’t know.</p><p>Charlie Munger is thought to have influenced many investors who bought BABA stock in 2021. He began buying the stock around $226, averaging down after that. Many other investors made similar moves. It was shortly after Munger’s first 13F featuring Alibaba that internet communities focused on BABA really started to take off. Some were founded just days after the release.</p><p>Naturally, Munger’s apparent sale made a big splash. BABA has always been at least partially a Munger clone trade, and it appears that Munger’s conviction in the stock has diminished. Shortly after the 13F was released, investors took to Twitter offering opinions and running polls asking others about what had happened.</p><p>We may never know. But it doesn’t matter, because BABA ceased being a Munger clone trade long before the 13F came out. When Munger stepped down as Chairman of the Daily Journal, it created ambiguity as to the actual level of influence he will exercise over the firm’s portfolio going forward. The DJCO portfolio is no longer a Munger portfolio–or at least, not 100% a Munger portfolio. For this reason, investors will need a better thesis than “clone Munger because he is good.” In this article, I will attempt to advance such a thesis, based on valuation, competitive position and China&#39;s economic growth. First, though, let’s examine why it will not be possible to clone “Munger’s” BABA trades in future quarters.</p><p>Why Munger Can’t be Cloned Anymore</p><p>There are two reasons why it is impossible to clone Munger’s future BABA trades:</p><ol><li>Munger is no longer Chairman of the Daily Journal.</li><li>Some of DJCO’s potential trades are impossible to confirm.</li></ol><p>The first of these is easy enough to explain. When Munger was Chairman of the Daily Journal, he managed the investment portfolio. Now that he is no longer Chairman, he simply has the duties of a director. Munger could still volunteer to manage the portfolio, but the ultimate decisions would fall on Steven Myhill-Jones, the new CEO, or Tu To, the new CFO. The SEC filings announcing these new hires didn&#39;t say who&#39;d manage the portfolio.</p><p>The second reason why Munger can’t be cloned now is because some of his potential trades wouldn’t have to be disclosed. Munger is well known for not telling investors more than he has to. If he simply converted some of his NYSE ADRs to Hong Kong shares, as some think he did, then he is no longer under the obligation to report all of his holdings. As the SEC website states, you don’t have to disclose foreign listed shares in a 13F, even if your position is massive.</p><p><img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/5852b29d02869d997a4c8ce719caa59f\" tg-width=\"575\" tg-height=\"191\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\" width=\"100%\" height=\"auto\"/></p><p>What all this means is that cloning Munger’s BABA trades won’t be possible going forward. For those whose BABA position was little more than a Munger copycat, that has got to sting. Fortunately, the fundamentals-based thesis on the stock is not that difficult to comprehend, and can be explained in terms of four basic principles. In the next section I will explain that case in detail.</p><h2>The Bullish Thesis on BABA</h2><p>A strong bullish thesis on BABA can be built on four pillars:</p><ul><li>China’s economy.</li><li>BABA’s competitive position.</li><li>Financial health.</li><li>Valuation.</li></ul><p>I’ll look at each of these factors one by one, starting with China’s economy</p><h2>China’s Economy</h2><p>Despite the negative headlines you’re seeing these days, China’s economy is very strong. Its GDP growth was 8.1% in 2021. GDP has grown at 7.4% CAGR over 10 years. In 2020, when many countries entered recessions, China’s growth merely decelerated to 2.2%. With all of this growth, you might think that China is pumping itself full of debt. But think again! At 66.8, China’s government debt as a percentage of GDP is lower than that of the U.S., Canada, and the Eurozone. You may have heard stories about China’s “debt problem,” and claims of a 250% debt to GDP ratio. The figure is correct but it includes all debt, government and private. China’s government debt–the kind used to pay for fiscal stimulus–is low as a percentage of GDP. So China is growing very quickly and is fiscally sound enough to stimulate its economy should stimulation become necessary.</p><h2>BABA’s Competitive Position</h2><p>As we’ve seen, China has a high growth economy–the kind of economy that a company wants to operate in. That’s a great start but we still need to know about BABA’s competitive position.</p><p>As an eCommerce company, BABA has few rivals of similar scale. JD.com (JD) technically does more revenue than BABA does, but it has much smaller margins. It could beat Alibaba on scale but probably not on profitability. JD holds and sells inventory. It’s hard to beat a “platform” company like BABA when you have inventory costs. It eats into margins.</p><p>Pinduoduo (PDD) has been cited as a potential competitor to BABA but there’s just not much evidence of PDD moving beyond agricultural goods. Its group buying model has proven popular in China, but until it moves into other verticals, it’s not competing with huge chunks of Alibaba’s business.</p><p>Tencent (OTCPK:TCEHY) competes with BABA in one limited way: it has a payment app. The Chinese government forced BABA and Tencent to accept each other’s payment apps last year. So the competition between these two companies for share of payments has indeed increased.</p><h2>BABA’s Financials</h2><p>Alibaba’s long-term financials are excellent. The most recent calendar year was a bit of a departure from the long term trend, but that could turn around.</p><p>According to Seeking Alpha Quant, BABA’s five year CAGR growth rates in revenue, earnings and cash flows are:</p><ul><li>Revenue: 42%.</li><li>Net income: 11.3%.</li><li>Diluted EPS: 9.8%.</li><li>Free cash flow: 13.66%.</li></ul><p>These are pretty solid metrics. They were all much higher prior to this year, but the 2021 Chinese tech crackdown caused last year’s numbers to suffer. BABA did take some new costs in 2021, like a $2.8 billion fine and a higher tax rate. However, the fine was non-recurring and the higher tax rate could be “outgrown” with enough quarters of strong revenue gains.</p><p>At any rate, Alibaba has more than enough financial strength to ride out a few lacklustre quarters. Its balance sheet is one of the strongest in the world, boasting eye-popping metrics like:</p><ul><li>$276 billion in assets.</li><li>$100 billion in liabilities.</li><li>$176 billion in equity.</li><li>$45 billion in cash.</li><li>About $20 billion in debt (calculated from $5.09 billion in bonds $14.85 billion in long term bank loans).</li><li>$105 billion in current assets.</li><li>$64 billion in current liabilities.</li><li>A 0.2 debt to equity ratio.</li><li>A 1.64 current ratio.</li></ul><p>So we have debt that is very low as a proportion of shareholder equity, and high liquidity. Even BABA’s cash and equivalents outstrip its long term debt! This suggests a very solid balance sheet and a second-to-none ability to ride out a crisis.</p><h2>Valuation</h2><p>Valuation has always been one of the pillars on which the BABA bull case has rested. BABA stock is very cheap by almost every multiple you can think of. Some of its most encouraging value metrics include:</p><ul><li>Adjusted P/E: 11.</li><li>Price/sales: 1.96.</li><li>Price/book: 1.67.</li><li>Price/operating cash flow: 9.37.</li></ul><p>All of these multiples are comparatively low for the tech sector. For comparison, Amazon (AMZN), the closest comparable U.S. company, has a 46 adjusted P/E ratio.</p><p>BABA’s GAAP P/E ratio (25) is a little high, but the most recent quarter included large unrealized losses on the company’s stock portfolio. Adjusted earnings and cash from operations are more closely related to the company’s operating performance, and not surprisingly, they were much higher than GAAP earnings. This isn’t just selective choice of non-GAAP measures either: operating cash flow is a GAAP metric and Alibaba reports in accordance with U.S. GAAP.</p><p>As we’ve seen, Alibaba is cheap, profitable, and has high historical growth. Certainly this stock has many things to recommend it, even after Charlie Munger rode off into the sunset. However, there are still risks and challenges to the bullish thesis on Alibaba stock. </p><p>These are real risks that investors will need to keep in mind. But on balance, Alibaba looks like a solid value play today. It’s still growing its revenue, its cloud business is inching toward profitability, and its valuation is cheaper than ever before. On the whole, it looks like a sweet deal – with or without Munger on board.</p></body></html>","collect":0,"html":"<!DOCTYPE html>\n<html>\n<head>\n<meta http-equiv=\"Content-Type\" content=\"text/html; charset=utf-8\" />\n<meta name=\"viewport\" content=\"width=device-width,initial-scale=1.0,minimum-scale=1.0,maximum-scale=1.0,user-scalable=no\"/>\n<meta name=\"format-detection\" content=\"telephone=no,email=no,address=no\" />\n<title>Alibaba: Munger Is Not The Thesis</title>\n<style type=\"text/css\">\na,abbr,acronym,address,applet,article,aside,audio,b,big,blockquote,body,canvas,caption,center,cite,code,dd,del,details,dfn,div,dl,dt,\nem,embed,fieldset,figcaption,figure,footer,form,h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6,header,hgroup,html,i,iframe,img,ins,kbd,label,legend,li,mark,menu,nav,\nobject,ol,output,p,pre,q,ruby,s,samp,section,small,span,strike,strong,sub,summary,sup,table,tbody,td,tfoot,th,thead,time,tr,tt,u,ul,var,video{ font:inherit;margin:0;padding:0;vertical-align:baseline;border:0 }\nbody{ font-size:16px; line-height:1.5; color:#999; background:transparent; }\n.wrapper{ overflow:hidden;word-break:break-all;padding:10px; }\nh1,h2{ font-weight:normal; line-height:1.35; margin-bottom:.6em; }\nh3,h4,h5,h6{ line-height:1.35; margin-bottom:1em; }\nh1{ font-size:24px; }\nh2{ font-size:20px; }\nh3{ font-size:18px; }\nh4{ font-size:16px; }\nh5{ font-size:14px; }\nh6{ font-size:12px; }\np,ul,ol,blockquote,dl,table{ margin:1.2em 0; }\nul,ol{ margin-left:2em; }\nul{ list-style:disc; }\nol{ list-style:decimal; }\nli,li p{ margin:10px 0;}\nimg{ max-width:100%;display:block;margin:0 auto 1em; }\nblockquote{ color:#B5B2B1; border-left:3px solid #aaa; padding:1em; }\nstrong,b{font-weight:bold;}\nem,i{font-style:italic;}\ntable{ width:100%;border-collapse:collapse;border-spacing:1px;margin:1em 0;font-size:.9em; }\nth,td{ padding:5px;text-align:left;border:1px solid #aaa; }\nth{ font-weight:bold;background:#5d5d5d; }\n.symbol-link{font-weight:bold;}\n/* header{ border-bottom:1px solid #494756; } */\n.title{ margin:0 0 8px;line-height:1.3;color:#ddd; }\n.meta {color:#5e5c6d;font-size:13px;margin:0 0 .5em; }\na{text-decoration:none; color:#2a4b87;}\n.meta .head { display: inline-block; overflow: hidden}\n.head .h-thumb { width: 30px; height: 30px; margin: 0; padding: 0; border-radius: 50%; float: left;}\n.head .h-content { margin: 0; padding: 0 0 0 9px; float: left;}\n.head .h-name {font-size: 13px; color: #eee; margin: 0;}\n.head .h-time {font-size: 11px; color: #7E829C; margin: 0;line-height: 11px;}\n.small {font-size: 12.5px; display: inline-block; transform: scale(0.9); -webkit-transform: scale(0.9); transform-origin: left; -webkit-transform-origin: left;}\n.smaller {font-size: 12.5px; display: inline-block; transform: scale(0.8); -webkit-transform: scale(0.8); transform-origin: left; -webkit-transform-origin: left;}\n.bt-text {font-size: 12px;margin: 1.5em 0 0 0}\n.bt-text p {margin: 0}\n</style>\n</head>\n<body>\n<div class=\"wrapper\">\n<header>\n<h2 class=\"title\">\nAlibaba: Munger Is Not The Thesis\n</h2>\n\n<h4 class=\"meta\">\n\n\n2022-04-18 13:16 GMT+8&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href=https://seekingalpha.com/article/4501707-alibaba-munger-not-thesis><strong>Seeking Alpha</strong></a>\n\n\n</h4>\n\n</header>\n<article>\n<div>\n<p>SummaryRecently the Daily Journal's 13F revealed that the company trimmed its Alibaba position by 50%.It isn't necessarily the case that former Chairman Charlie Munger sold due to weakening conviction...</p>\n\n<a href=\"https://seekingalpha.com/article/4501707-alibaba-munger-not-thesis\">Web Link</a>\n\n</div>\n\n\n</article>\n</div>\n</body>\n</html>\n","type":0,"thumbnail":"","relate_stocks":{"BABA":"阿里巴巴"},"source_url":"https://seekingalpha.com/article/4501707-alibaba-munger-not-thesis","is_english":true,"share_image_url":"https://static.laohu8.com/e9f99090a1c2ed51c021029395664489","article_id":"1110595663","content_text":"SummaryRecently the Daily Journal's 13F revealed that the company trimmed its Alibaba position by 50%.It isn't necessarily the case that former Chairman Charlie Munger sold due to weakening conviction on BABA stock itself.However, Munger IS out of the picture in one very real way: he is no longer the Daily Journal's Chairman.For this reason, Alibaba can no longer be considered a Munger copy trade.In this article, I develop a fundamentals-based thesis for those who cloned Munger and now aren't sure what to do.Charlie Munger’s Alibaba Group (NYSE:BABA) investment was the talk of the town last week. In its Q1 13F, the Daily Journal Corp (DJCO) revealed that it had sold 50% of its stake in the Chinese tech company, after several quarters of averaging down. It wasn’t immediately clear whether Munger himself made the decision to sell the shares, as he had stepped down just days before the end of the quarter. Tu To was elected to serve as the company’s CFO on March 22. She signed all of the company’s SEC filings from the 22nd onward.There are many reasons why Munger (or somebody else) might have chosen to sell Alibaba. Not all of them necessarily reflect lower conviction in the stock. It’s possible that DJCO converted some of its NYSE shares to Hong Kong shares, or sold to cover a margin loan. Munger hasn’t spoken on the matter publicly yet, nor have any other DJCO officers, so we don’t know.Charlie Munger is thought to have influenced many investors who bought BABA stock in 2021. He began buying the stock around $226, averaging down after that. Many other investors made similar moves. It was shortly after Munger’s first 13F featuring Alibaba that internet communities focused on BABA really started to take off. Some were founded just days after the release.Naturally, Munger’s apparent sale made a big splash. BABA has always been at least partially a Munger clone trade, and it appears that Munger’s conviction in the stock has diminished. Shortly after the 13F was released, investors took to Twitter offering opinions and running polls asking others about what had happened.We may never know. But it doesn’t matter, because BABA ceased being a Munger clone trade long before the 13F came out. When Munger stepped down as Chairman of the Daily Journal, it created ambiguity as to the actual level of influence he will exercise over the firm’s portfolio going forward. The DJCO portfolio is no longer a Munger portfolio–or at least, not 100% a Munger portfolio. For this reason, investors will need a better thesis than “clone Munger because he is good.” In this article, I will attempt to advance such a thesis, based on valuation, competitive position and China's economic growth. First, though, let’s examine why it will not be possible to clone “Munger’s” BABA trades in future quarters.Why Munger Can’t be Cloned AnymoreThere are two reasons why it is impossible to clone Munger’s future BABA trades:Munger is no longer Chairman of the Daily Journal.Some of DJCO’s potential trades are impossible to confirm.The first of these is easy enough to explain. When Munger was Chairman of the Daily Journal, he managed the investment portfolio. Now that he is no longer Chairman, he simply has the duties of a director. Munger could still volunteer to manage the portfolio, but the ultimate decisions would fall on Steven Myhill-Jones, the new CEO, or Tu To, the new CFO. The SEC filings announcing these new hires didn't say who'd manage the portfolio.The second reason why Munger can’t be cloned now is because some of his potential trades wouldn’t have to be disclosed. Munger is well known for not telling investors more than he has to. If he simply converted some of his NYSE ADRs to Hong Kong shares, as some think he did, then he is no longer under the obligation to report all of his holdings. As the SEC website states, you don’t have to disclose foreign listed shares in a 13F, even if your position is massive.What all this means is that cloning Munger’s BABA trades won’t be possible going forward. For those whose BABA position was little more than a Munger copycat, that has got to sting. Fortunately, the fundamentals-based thesis on the stock is not that difficult to comprehend, and can be explained in terms of four basic principles. In the next section I will explain that case in detail.The Bullish Thesis on BABAA strong bullish thesis on BABA can be built on four pillars:China’s economy.BABA’s competitive position.Financial health.Valuation.I’ll look at each of these factors one by one, starting with China’s economyChina’s EconomyDespite the negative headlines you’re seeing these days, China’s economy is very strong. Its GDP growth was 8.1% in 2021. GDP has grown at 7.4% CAGR over 10 years. In 2020, when many countries entered recessions, China’s growth merely decelerated to 2.2%. With all of this growth, you might think that China is pumping itself full of debt. But think again! At 66.8, China’s government debt as a percentage of GDP is lower than that of the U.S., Canada, and the Eurozone. You may have heard stories about China’s “debt problem,” and claims of a 250% debt to GDP ratio. The figure is correct but it includes all debt, government and private. China’s government debt–the kind used to pay for fiscal stimulus–is low as a percentage of GDP. So China is growing very quickly and is fiscally sound enough to stimulate its economy should stimulation become necessary.BABA’s Competitive PositionAs we’ve seen, China has a high growth economy–the kind of economy that a company wants to operate in. That’s a great start but we still need to know about BABA’s competitive position.As an eCommerce company, BABA has few rivals of similar scale. JD.com (JD) technically does more revenue than BABA does, but it has much smaller margins. It could beat Alibaba on scale but probably not on profitability. JD holds and sells inventory. It’s hard to beat a “platform” company like BABA when you have inventory costs. It eats into margins.Pinduoduo (PDD) has been cited as a potential competitor to BABA but there’s just not much evidence of PDD moving beyond agricultural goods. Its group buying model has proven popular in China, but until it moves into other verticals, it’s not competing with huge chunks of Alibaba’s business.Tencent (OTCPK:TCEHY) competes with BABA in one limited way: it has a payment app. The Chinese government forced BABA and Tencent to accept each other’s payment apps last year. So the competition between these two companies for share of payments has indeed increased.BABA’s FinancialsAlibaba’s long-term financials are excellent. The most recent calendar year was a bit of a departure from the long term trend, but that could turn around.According to Seeking Alpha Quant, BABA’s five year CAGR growth rates in revenue, earnings and cash flows are:Revenue: 42%.Net income: 11.3%.Diluted EPS: 9.8%.Free cash flow: 13.66%.These are pretty solid metrics. They were all much higher prior to this year, but the 2021 Chinese tech crackdown caused last year’s numbers to suffer. BABA did take some new costs in 2021, like a $2.8 billion fine and a higher tax rate. However, the fine was non-recurring and the higher tax rate could be “outgrown” with enough quarters of strong revenue gains.At any rate, Alibaba has more than enough financial strength to ride out a few lacklustre quarters. Its balance sheet is one of the strongest in the world, boasting eye-popping metrics like:$276 billion in assets.$100 billion in liabilities.$176 billion in equity.$45 billion in cash.About $20 billion in debt (calculated from $5.09 billion in bonds $14.85 billion in long term bank loans).$105 billion in current assets.$64 billion in current liabilities.A 0.2 debt to equity ratio.A 1.64 current ratio.So we have debt that is very low as a proportion of shareholder equity, and high liquidity. Even BABA’s cash and equivalents outstrip its long term debt! This suggests a very solid balance sheet and a second-to-none ability to ride out a crisis.ValuationValuation has always been one of the pillars on which the BABA bull case has rested. BABA stock is very cheap by almost every multiple you can think of. Some of its most encouraging value metrics include:Adjusted P/E: 11.Price/sales: 1.96.Price/book: 1.67.Price/operating cash flow: 9.37.All of these multiples are comparatively low for the tech sector. For comparison, Amazon (AMZN), the closest comparable U.S. company, has a 46 adjusted P/E ratio.BABA’s GAAP P/E ratio (25) is a little high, but the most recent quarter included large unrealized losses on the company’s stock portfolio. Adjusted earnings and cash from operations are more closely related to the company’s operating performance, and not surprisingly, they were much higher than GAAP earnings. This isn’t just selective choice of non-GAAP measures either: operating cash flow is a GAAP metric and Alibaba reports in accordance with U.S. GAAP.As we’ve seen, Alibaba is cheap, profitable, and has high historical growth. Certainly this stock has many things to recommend it, even after Charlie Munger rode off into the sunset. However, there are still risks and challenges to the bullish thesis on Alibaba stock. These are real risks that investors will need to keep in mind. But on balance, Alibaba looks like a solid value play today. It’s still growing its revenue, its cloud business is inching toward profitability, and its valuation is cheaper than ever before. On the whole, it looks like a sweet deal – with or without Munger on board.","news_type":1},"isVote":1,"likeStatus":false,"favoriteStatus":false,"reportStatus":false,"tweetType":1,"langContent":"EN"},{"id":9081422768,"gmtCreate":1650269349633,"gmtModify":1676534682892,"author":{"id":"3572916667219493","authorId":"3572916667219493","name":"Zarkness","avatar":"https://static.tigerbbs.com/4b8c61830c4883c4232aece921d89d14","vip":1,"hat":"https://static.tigerbbs.com/b0a2963eb37c60c5d6d4a8dbcd266952","crmLevel":3,"crmLevelSwitch":0},"htmlText":"I agree with this unbiased article!! Share!!","listText":"I agree with this unbiased article!! Share!!","text":"I agree with this unbiased article!! Share!!","images":[],"top":1,"highlighted":1,"essential":1,"paper":1,"likeSize":1,"commentSize":0,"repostSize":0,"link":"https://ttm.financial/post/9081422768","repostId":1110595663,"repostType":2,"repost":{"id":"1110595663","pubTimestamp":1650258996,"share":"https://www.laohu8.com/m/news/1110595663?lang=&edition=full","pubTime":"2022-04-18 13:16","market":"us","language":"en","title":"Alibaba: Munger Is Not The Thesis","url":"https://stock-news.laohu8.com/highlight/detail?id=1110595663","media":"Seeking Alpha","summary":"SummaryRecently the Daily Journal's 13F revealed that the company trimmed its Alibaba position by 50%.It isn't necessarily the case that former Chairman Charlie Munger sold due to weakening conviction","content":"<html><head></head><body><p>Summary</p><ul><li>Recently the Daily Journal&#39;s 13F revealed that the company trimmed its Alibaba position by 50%.</li><li>It isn&#39;t necessarily the case that former Chairman Charlie Munger sold due to weakening conviction on BABA stock itself.</li><li>However, Munger IS out of the picture in one very real way: he is no longer the Daily Journal&#39;s Chairman.</li><li>For this reason, Alibaba can no longer be considered a Munger copy trade.</li><li>In this article, I develop a fundamentals-based thesis for those who cloned Munger and now aren&#39;t sure what to do.</li></ul><p>Charlie Munger’s Alibaba Group (NYSE:BABA) investment was the talk of the town last week. In its Q1 13F, the Daily Journal Corp (DJCO) revealed that it had sold 50% of its stake in the Chinese tech company, after several quarters of averaging down. It wasn’t immediately clear whether Munger himself made the decision to sell the shares, as he had stepped down just days before the end of the quarter. Tu To was elected to serve as the company’s CFO on March 22. She signed all of the company’s SEC filings from the 22nd onward.</p><p>There are many reasons why Munger (or somebody else) might have chosen to sell Alibaba. Not all of them necessarily reflect lower conviction in the stock. It’s possible that DJCO converted some of its NYSE shares to Hong Kong shares, or sold to cover a margin loan. Munger hasn’t spoken on the matter publicly yet, nor have any other DJCO officers, so we don’t know.</p><p>Charlie Munger is thought to have influenced many investors who bought BABA stock in 2021. He began buying the stock around $226, averaging down after that. Many other investors made similar moves. It was shortly after Munger’s first 13F featuring Alibaba that internet communities focused on BABA really started to take off. Some were founded just days after the release.</p><p>Naturally, Munger’s apparent sale made a big splash. BABA has always been at least partially a Munger clone trade, and it appears that Munger’s conviction in the stock has diminished. Shortly after the 13F was released, investors took to Twitter offering opinions and running polls asking others about what had happened.</p><p>We may never know. But it doesn’t matter, because BABA ceased being a Munger clone trade long before the 13F came out. When Munger stepped down as Chairman of the Daily Journal, it created ambiguity as to the actual level of influence he will exercise over the firm’s portfolio going forward. The DJCO portfolio is no longer a Munger portfolio–or at least, not 100% a Munger portfolio. For this reason, investors will need a better thesis than “clone Munger because he is good.” In this article, I will attempt to advance such a thesis, based on valuation, competitive position and China&#39;s economic growth. First, though, let’s examine why it will not be possible to clone “Munger’s” BABA trades in future quarters.</p><p>Why Munger Can’t be Cloned Anymore</p><p>There are two reasons why it is impossible to clone Munger’s future BABA trades:</p><ol><li>Munger is no longer Chairman of the Daily Journal.</li><li>Some of DJCO’s potential trades are impossible to confirm.</li></ol><p>The first of these is easy enough to explain. When Munger was Chairman of the Daily Journal, he managed the investment portfolio. Now that he is no longer Chairman, he simply has the duties of a director. Munger could still volunteer to manage the portfolio, but the ultimate decisions would fall on Steven Myhill-Jones, the new CEO, or Tu To, the new CFO. The SEC filings announcing these new hires didn&#39;t say who&#39;d manage the portfolio.</p><p>The second reason why Munger can’t be cloned now is because some of his potential trades wouldn’t have to be disclosed. Munger is well known for not telling investors more than he has to. If he simply converted some of his NYSE ADRs to Hong Kong shares, as some think he did, then he is no longer under the obligation to report all of his holdings. As the SEC website states, you don’t have to disclose foreign listed shares in a 13F, even if your position is massive.</p><p><img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/5852b29d02869d997a4c8ce719caa59f\" tg-width=\"575\" tg-height=\"191\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\" width=\"100%\" height=\"auto\"/></p><p>What all this means is that cloning Munger’s BABA trades won’t be possible going forward. For those whose BABA position was little more than a Munger copycat, that has got to sting. Fortunately, the fundamentals-based thesis on the stock is not that difficult to comprehend, and can be explained in terms of four basic principles. In the next section I will explain that case in detail.</p><h2>The Bullish Thesis on BABA</h2><p>A strong bullish thesis on BABA can be built on four pillars:</p><ul><li>China’s economy.</li><li>BABA’s competitive position.</li><li>Financial health.</li><li>Valuation.</li></ul><p>I’ll look at each of these factors one by one, starting with China’s economy</p><h2>China’s Economy</h2><p>Despite the negative headlines you’re seeing these days, China’s economy is very strong. Its GDP growth was 8.1% in 2021. GDP has grown at 7.4% CAGR over 10 years. In 2020, when many countries entered recessions, China’s growth merely decelerated to 2.2%. With all of this growth, you might think that China is pumping itself full of debt. But think again! At 66.8, China’s government debt as a percentage of GDP is lower than that of the U.S., Canada, and the Eurozone. You may have heard stories about China’s “debt problem,” and claims of a 250% debt to GDP ratio. The figure is correct but it includes all debt, government and private. China’s government debt–the kind used to pay for fiscal stimulus–is low as a percentage of GDP. So China is growing very quickly and is fiscally sound enough to stimulate its economy should stimulation become necessary.</p><h2>BABA’s Competitive Position</h2><p>As we’ve seen, China has a high growth economy–the kind of economy that a company wants to operate in. That’s a great start but we still need to know about BABA’s competitive position.</p><p>As an eCommerce company, BABA has few rivals of similar scale. JD.com (JD) technically does more revenue than BABA does, but it has much smaller margins. It could beat Alibaba on scale but probably not on profitability. JD holds and sells inventory. It’s hard to beat a “platform” company like BABA when you have inventory costs. It eats into margins.</p><p>Pinduoduo (PDD) has been cited as a potential competitor to BABA but there’s just not much evidence of PDD moving beyond agricultural goods. Its group buying model has proven popular in China, but until it moves into other verticals, it’s not competing with huge chunks of Alibaba’s business.</p><p>Tencent (OTCPK:TCEHY) competes with BABA in one limited way: it has a payment app. The Chinese government forced BABA and Tencent to accept each other’s payment apps last year. So the competition between these two companies for share of payments has indeed increased.</p><h2>BABA’s Financials</h2><p>Alibaba’s long-term financials are excellent. The most recent calendar year was a bit of a departure from the long term trend, but that could turn around.</p><p>According to Seeking Alpha Quant, BABA’s five year CAGR growth rates in revenue, earnings and cash flows are:</p><ul><li>Revenue: 42%.</li><li>Net income: 11.3%.</li><li>Diluted EPS: 9.8%.</li><li>Free cash flow: 13.66%.</li></ul><p>These are pretty solid metrics. They were all much higher prior to this year, but the 2021 Chinese tech crackdown caused last year’s numbers to suffer. BABA did take some new costs in 2021, like a $2.8 billion fine and a higher tax rate. However, the fine was non-recurring and the higher tax rate could be “outgrown” with enough quarters of strong revenue gains.</p><p>At any rate, Alibaba has more than enough financial strength to ride out a few lacklustre quarters. Its balance sheet is one of the strongest in the world, boasting eye-popping metrics like:</p><ul><li>$276 billion in assets.</li><li>$100 billion in liabilities.</li><li>$176 billion in equity.</li><li>$45 billion in cash.</li><li>About $20 billion in debt (calculated from $5.09 billion in bonds $14.85 billion in long term bank loans).</li><li>$105 billion in current assets.</li><li>$64 billion in current liabilities.</li><li>A 0.2 debt to equity ratio.</li><li>A 1.64 current ratio.</li></ul><p>So we have debt that is very low as a proportion of shareholder equity, and high liquidity. Even BABA’s cash and equivalents outstrip its long term debt! This suggests a very solid balance sheet and a second-to-none ability to ride out a crisis.</p><h2>Valuation</h2><p>Valuation has always been one of the pillars on which the BABA bull case has rested. BABA stock is very cheap by almost every multiple you can think of. Some of its most encouraging value metrics include:</p><ul><li>Adjusted P/E: 11.</li><li>Price/sales: 1.96.</li><li>Price/book: 1.67.</li><li>Price/operating cash flow: 9.37.</li></ul><p>All of these multiples are comparatively low for the tech sector. For comparison, Amazon (AMZN), the closest comparable U.S. company, has a 46 adjusted P/E ratio.</p><p>BABA’s GAAP P/E ratio (25) is a little high, but the most recent quarter included large unrealized losses on the company’s stock portfolio. Adjusted earnings and cash from operations are more closely related to the company’s operating performance, and not surprisingly, they were much higher than GAAP earnings. This isn’t just selective choice of non-GAAP measures either: operating cash flow is a GAAP metric and Alibaba reports in accordance with U.S. GAAP.</p><p>As we’ve seen, Alibaba is cheap, profitable, and has high historical growth. Certainly this stock has many things to recommend it, even after Charlie Munger rode off into the sunset. However, there are still risks and challenges to the bullish thesis on Alibaba stock. </p><p>These are real risks that investors will need to keep in mind. But on balance, Alibaba looks like a solid value play today. It’s still growing its revenue, its cloud business is inching toward profitability, and its valuation is cheaper than ever before. On the whole, it looks like a sweet deal – with or without Munger on board.</p></body></html>","collect":0,"html":"<!DOCTYPE html>\n<html>\n<head>\n<meta http-equiv=\"Content-Type\" content=\"text/html; charset=utf-8\" />\n<meta name=\"viewport\" content=\"width=device-width,initial-scale=1.0,minimum-scale=1.0,maximum-scale=1.0,user-scalable=no\"/>\n<meta name=\"format-detection\" content=\"telephone=no,email=no,address=no\" />\n<title>Alibaba: Munger Is Not The Thesis</title>\n<style type=\"text/css\">\na,abbr,acronym,address,applet,article,aside,audio,b,big,blockquote,body,canvas,caption,center,cite,code,dd,del,details,dfn,div,dl,dt,\nem,embed,fieldset,figcaption,figure,footer,form,h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6,header,hgroup,html,i,iframe,img,ins,kbd,label,legend,li,mark,menu,nav,\nobject,ol,output,p,pre,q,ruby,s,samp,section,small,span,strike,strong,sub,summary,sup,table,tbody,td,tfoot,th,thead,time,tr,tt,u,ul,var,video{ font:inherit;margin:0;padding:0;vertical-align:baseline;border:0 }\nbody{ font-size:16px; line-height:1.5; color:#999; background:transparent; }\n.wrapper{ overflow:hidden;word-break:break-all;padding:10px; }\nh1,h2{ font-weight:normal; line-height:1.35; margin-bottom:.6em; }\nh3,h4,h5,h6{ line-height:1.35; margin-bottom:1em; }\nh1{ font-size:24px; }\nh2{ font-size:20px; }\nh3{ font-size:18px; }\nh4{ font-size:16px; }\nh5{ font-size:14px; }\nh6{ font-size:12px; }\np,ul,ol,blockquote,dl,table{ margin:1.2em 0; }\nul,ol{ margin-left:2em; }\nul{ list-style:disc; }\nol{ list-style:decimal; }\nli,li p{ margin:10px 0;}\nimg{ max-width:100%;display:block;margin:0 auto 1em; }\nblockquote{ color:#B5B2B1; border-left:3px solid #aaa; padding:1em; }\nstrong,b{font-weight:bold;}\nem,i{font-style:italic;}\ntable{ width:100%;border-collapse:collapse;border-spacing:1px;margin:1em 0;font-size:.9em; }\nth,td{ padding:5px;text-align:left;border:1px solid #aaa; }\nth{ font-weight:bold;background:#5d5d5d; }\n.symbol-link{font-weight:bold;}\n/* header{ border-bottom:1px solid #494756; } */\n.title{ margin:0 0 8px;line-height:1.3;color:#ddd; }\n.meta {color:#5e5c6d;font-size:13px;margin:0 0 .5em; }\na{text-decoration:none; color:#2a4b87;}\n.meta .head { display: inline-block; overflow: hidden}\n.head .h-thumb { width: 30px; height: 30px; margin: 0; padding: 0; border-radius: 50%; float: left;}\n.head .h-content { margin: 0; padding: 0 0 0 9px; float: left;}\n.head .h-name {font-size: 13px; color: #eee; margin: 0;}\n.head .h-time {font-size: 11px; color: #7E829C; margin: 0;line-height: 11px;}\n.small {font-size: 12.5px; display: inline-block; transform: scale(0.9); -webkit-transform: scale(0.9); transform-origin: left; -webkit-transform-origin: left;}\n.smaller {font-size: 12.5px; display: inline-block; transform: scale(0.8); -webkit-transform: scale(0.8); transform-origin: left; -webkit-transform-origin: left;}\n.bt-text {font-size: 12px;margin: 1.5em 0 0 0}\n.bt-text p {margin: 0}\n</style>\n</head>\n<body>\n<div class=\"wrapper\">\n<header>\n<h2 class=\"title\">\nAlibaba: Munger Is Not The Thesis\n</h2>\n\n<h4 class=\"meta\">\n\n\n2022-04-18 13:16 GMT+8&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href=https://seekingalpha.com/article/4501707-alibaba-munger-not-thesis><strong>Seeking Alpha</strong></a>\n\n\n</h4>\n\n</header>\n<article>\n<div>\n<p>SummaryRecently the Daily Journal's 13F revealed that the company trimmed its Alibaba position by 50%.It isn't necessarily the case that former Chairman Charlie Munger sold due to weakening conviction...</p>\n\n<a href=\"https://seekingalpha.com/article/4501707-alibaba-munger-not-thesis\">Web Link</a>\n\n</div>\n\n\n</article>\n</div>\n</body>\n</html>\n","type":0,"thumbnail":"","relate_stocks":{"BABA":"阿里巴巴"},"source_url":"https://seekingalpha.com/article/4501707-alibaba-munger-not-thesis","is_english":true,"share_image_url":"https://static.laohu8.com/e9f99090a1c2ed51c021029395664489","article_id":"1110595663","content_text":"SummaryRecently the Daily Journal's 13F revealed that the company trimmed its Alibaba position by 50%.It isn't necessarily the case that former Chairman Charlie Munger sold due to weakening conviction on BABA stock itself.However, Munger IS out of the picture in one very real way: he is no longer the Daily Journal's Chairman.For this reason, Alibaba can no longer be considered a Munger copy trade.In this article, I develop a fundamentals-based thesis for those who cloned Munger and now aren't sure what to do.Charlie Munger’s Alibaba Group (NYSE:BABA) investment was the talk of the town last week. In its Q1 13F, the Daily Journal Corp (DJCO) revealed that it had sold 50% of its stake in the Chinese tech company, after several quarters of averaging down. It wasn’t immediately clear whether Munger himself made the decision to sell the shares, as he had stepped down just days before the end of the quarter. Tu To was elected to serve as the company’s CFO on March 22. She signed all of the company’s SEC filings from the 22nd onward.There are many reasons why Munger (or somebody else) might have chosen to sell Alibaba. Not all of them necessarily reflect lower conviction in the stock. It’s possible that DJCO converted some of its NYSE shares to Hong Kong shares, or sold to cover a margin loan. Munger hasn’t spoken on the matter publicly yet, nor have any other DJCO officers, so we don’t know.Charlie Munger is thought to have influenced many investors who bought BABA stock in 2021. He began buying the stock around $226, averaging down after that. Many other investors made similar moves. It was shortly after Munger’s first 13F featuring Alibaba that internet communities focused on BABA really started to take off. Some were founded just days after the release.Naturally, Munger’s apparent sale made a big splash. BABA has always been at least partially a Munger clone trade, and it appears that Munger’s conviction in the stock has diminished. Shortly after the 13F was released, investors took to Twitter offering opinions and running polls asking others about what had happened.We may never know. But it doesn’t matter, because BABA ceased being a Munger clone trade long before the 13F came out. When Munger stepped down as Chairman of the Daily Journal, it created ambiguity as to the actual level of influence he will exercise over the firm’s portfolio going forward. The DJCO portfolio is no longer a Munger portfolio–or at least, not 100% a Munger portfolio. For this reason, investors will need a better thesis than “clone Munger because he is good.” In this article, I will attempt to advance such a thesis, based on valuation, competitive position and China's economic growth. First, though, let’s examine why it will not be possible to clone “Munger’s” BABA trades in future quarters.Why Munger Can’t be Cloned AnymoreThere are two reasons why it is impossible to clone Munger’s future BABA trades:Munger is no longer Chairman of the Daily Journal.Some of DJCO’s potential trades are impossible to confirm.The first of these is easy enough to explain. When Munger was Chairman of the Daily Journal, he managed the investment portfolio. Now that he is no longer Chairman, he simply has the duties of a director. Munger could still volunteer to manage the portfolio, but the ultimate decisions would fall on Steven Myhill-Jones, the new CEO, or Tu To, the new CFO. The SEC filings announcing these new hires didn't say who'd manage the portfolio.The second reason why Munger can’t be cloned now is because some of his potential trades wouldn’t have to be disclosed. Munger is well known for not telling investors more than he has to. If he simply converted some of his NYSE ADRs to Hong Kong shares, as some think he did, then he is no longer under the obligation to report all of his holdings. As the SEC website states, you don’t have to disclose foreign listed shares in a 13F, even if your position is massive.What all this means is that cloning Munger’s BABA trades won’t be possible going forward. For those whose BABA position was little more than a Munger copycat, that has got to sting. Fortunately, the fundamentals-based thesis on the stock is not that difficult to comprehend, and can be explained in terms of four basic principles. In the next section I will explain that case in detail.The Bullish Thesis on BABAA strong bullish thesis on BABA can be built on four pillars:China’s economy.BABA’s competitive position.Financial health.Valuation.I’ll look at each of these factors one by one, starting with China’s economyChina’s EconomyDespite the negative headlines you’re seeing these days, China’s economy is very strong. Its GDP growth was 8.1% in 2021. GDP has grown at 7.4% CAGR over 10 years. In 2020, when many countries entered recessions, China’s growth merely decelerated to 2.2%. With all of this growth, you might think that China is pumping itself full of debt. But think again! At 66.8, China’s government debt as a percentage of GDP is lower than that of the U.S., Canada, and the Eurozone. You may have heard stories about China’s “debt problem,” and claims of a 250% debt to GDP ratio. The figure is correct but it includes all debt, government and private. China’s government debt–the kind used to pay for fiscal stimulus–is low as a percentage of GDP. So China is growing very quickly and is fiscally sound enough to stimulate its economy should stimulation become necessary.BABA’s Competitive PositionAs we’ve seen, China has a high growth economy–the kind of economy that a company wants to operate in. That’s a great start but we still need to know about BABA’s competitive position.As an eCommerce company, BABA has few rivals of similar scale. JD.com (JD) technically does more revenue than BABA does, but it has much smaller margins. It could beat Alibaba on scale but probably not on profitability. JD holds and sells inventory. It’s hard to beat a “platform” company like BABA when you have inventory costs. It eats into margins.Pinduoduo (PDD) has been cited as a potential competitor to BABA but there’s just not much evidence of PDD moving beyond agricultural goods. Its group buying model has proven popular in China, but until it moves into other verticals, it’s not competing with huge chunks of Alibaba’s business.Tencent (OTCPK:TCEHY) competes with BABA in one limited way: it has a payment app. The Chinese government forced BABA and Tencent to accept each other’s payment apps last year. So the competition between these two companies for share of payments has indeed increased.BABA’s FinancialsAlibaba’s long-term financials are excellent. The most recent calendar year was a bit of a departure from the long term trend, but that could turn around.According to Seeking Alpha Quant, BABA’s five year CAGR growth rates in revenue, earnings and cash flows are:Revenue: 42%.Net income: 11.3%.Diluted EPS: 9.8%.Free cash flow: 13.66%.These are pretty solid metrics. They were all much higher prior to this year, but the 2021 Chinese tech crackdown caused last year’s numbers to suffer. BABA did take some new costs in 2021, like a $2.8 billion fine and a higher tax rate. However, the fine was non-recurring and the higher tax rate could be “outgrown” with enough quarters of strong revenue gains.At any rate, Alibaba has more than enough financial strength to ride out a few lacklustre quarters. Its balance sheet is one of the strongest in the world, boasting eye-popping metrics like:$276 billion in assets.$100 billion in liabilities.$176 billion in equity.$45 billion in cash.About $20 billion in debt (calculated from $5.09 billion in bonds $14.85 billion in long term bank loans).$105 billion in current assets.$64 billion in current liabilities.A 0.2 debt to equity ratio.A 1.64 current ratio.So we have debt that is very low as a proportion of shareholder equity, and high liquidity. Even BABA’s cash and equivalents outstrip its long term debt! This suggests a very solid balance sheet and a second-to-none ability to ride out a crisis.ValuationValuation has always been one of the pillars on which the BABA bull case has rested. BABA stock is very cheap by almost every multiple you can think of. Some of its most encouraging value metrics include:Adjusted P/E: 11.Price/sales: 1.96.Price/book: 1.67.Price/operating cash flow: 9.37.All of these multiples are comparatively low for the tech sector. For comparison, Amazon (AMZN), the closest comparable U.S. company, has a 46 adjusted P/E ratio.BABA’s GAAP P/E ratio (25) is a little high, but the most recent quarter included large unrealized losses on the company’s stock portfolio. Adjusted earnings and cash from operations are more closely related to the company’s operating performance, and not surprisingly, they were much higher than GAAP earnings. This isn’t just selective choice of non-GAAP measures either: operating cash flow is a GAAP metric and Alibaba reports in accordance with U.S. GAAP.As we’ve seen, Alibaba is cheap, profitable, and has high historical growth. Certainly this stock has many things to recommend it, even after Charlie Munger rode off into the sunset. However, there are still risks and challenges to the bullish thesis on Alibaba stock. These are real risks that investors will need to keep in mind. But on balance, Alibaba looks like a solid value play today. It’s still growing its revenue, its cloud business is inching toward profitability, and its valuation is cheaper than ever before. On the whole, it looks like a sweet deal – with or without Munger on board.","news_type":1},"isVote":1,"likeStatus":false,"favoriteStatus":false,"reportStatus":false,"tweetType":1,"langContent":"EN"},{"id":9081469921,"gmtCreate":1650266828853,"gmtModify":1676534682557,"author":{"id":"3572923586954779","authorId":"3572923586954779","name":"LimLS","avatar":"https://static.tigerbbs.com/217b03b0c4808fb537070ba4e8f9d83f","vip":1,"crmLevel":5,"crmLevelSwitch":1},"htmlText":"The hype on China huge growing market, the excellent BABA balance sheet and growth, cheapness of BABA against the like of similar competitors like Amazon, etc etc, all these have being talked about when BABA dropped to the low 200s. Everyone is screaming for a buy for such a \"good\" business at such \"attractive\" buy. Nothing much had changed in term of the size of China market, excellent balance sheet of BABA, but its price had dropped another 50% to the low 100s. So what's wrong? We do not know why Munger had sold. Maybe he just knew something that we don't. People played up the news when Munger bought BABA and said it's a boost to BABA. When Munger sold, the same people try to downplay the news. Shameful.","listText":"The hype on China huge growing market, the excellent BABA balance sheet and growth, cheapness of BABA against the like of similar competitors like Amazon, etc etc, all these have being talked about when BABA dropped to the low 200s. Everyone is screaming for a buy for such a \"good\" business at such \"attractive\" buy. Nothing much had changed in term of the size of China market, excellent balance sheet of BABA, but its price had dropped another 50% to the low 100s. So what's wrong? We do not know why Munger had sold. Maybe he just knew something that we don't. People played up the news when Munger bought BABA and said it's a boost to BABA. When Munger sold, the same people try to downplay the news. Shameful.","text":"The hype on China huge growing market, the excellent BABA balance sheet and growth, cheapness of BABA against the like of similar competitors like Amazon, etc etc, all these have being talked about when BABA dropped to the low 200s. Everyone is screaming for a buy for such a \"good\" business at such \"attractive\" buy. Nothing much had changed in term of the size of China market, excellent balance sheet of BABA, but its price had dropped another 50% to the low 100s. So what's wrong? We do not know why Munger had sold. Maybe he just knew something that we don't. People played up the news when Munger bought BABA and said it's a boost to BABA. When Munger sold, the same people try to downplay the news. Shameful.","images":[],"top":1,"highlighted":1,"essential":1,"paper":1,"likeSize":8,"commentSize":0,"repostSize":0,"link":"https://ttm.financial/post/9081469921","repostId":1110595663,"repostType":4,"repost":{"id":"1110595663","pubTimestamp":1650258996,"share":"https://www.laohu8.com/m/news/1110595663?lang=&edition=full","pubTime":"2022-04-18 13:16","market":"us","language":"en","title":"Alibaba: Munger Is Not The Thesis","url":"https://stock-news.laohu8.com/highlight/detail?id=1110595663","media":"Seeking Alpha","summary":"SummaryRecently the Daily Journal's 13F revealed that the company trimmed its Alibaba position by 50%.It isn't necessarily the case that former Chairman Charlie Munger sold due to weakening conviction","content":"<html><head></head><body><p>Summary</p><ul><li>Recently the Daily Journal&#39;s 13F revealed that the company trimmed its Alibaba position by 50%.</li><li>It isn&#39;t necessarily the case that former Chairman Charlie Munger sold due to weakening conviction on BABA stock itself.</li><li>However, Munger IS out of the picture in one very real way: he is no longer the Daily Journal&#39;s Chairman.</li><li>For this reason, Alibaba can no longer be considered a Munger copy trade.</li><li>In this article, I develop a fundamentals-based thesis for those who cloned Munger and now aren&#39;t sure what to do.</li></ul><p>Charlie Munger’s Alibaba Group (NYSE:BABA) investment was the talk of the town last week. In its Q1 13F, the Daily Journal Corp (DJCO) revealed that it had sold 50% of its stake in the Chinese tech company, after several quarters of averaging down. It wasn’t immediately clear whether Munger himself made the decision to sell the shares, as he had stepped down just days before the end of the quarter. Tu To was elected to serve as the company’s CFO on March 22. She signed all of the company’s SEC filings from the 22nd onward.</p><p>There are many reasons why Munger (or somebody else) might have chosen to sell Alibaba. Not all of them necessarily reflect lower conviction in the stock. It’s possible that DJCO converted some of its NYSE shares to Hong Kong shares, or sold to cover a margin loan. Munger hasn’t spoken on the matter publicly yet, nor have any other DJCO officers, so we don’t know.</p><p>Charlie Munger is thought to have influenced many investors who bought BABA stock in 2021. He began buying the stock around $226, averaging down after that. Many other investors made similar moves. It was shortly after Munger’s first 13F featuring Alibaba that internet communities focused on BABA really started to take off. Some were founded just days after the release.</p><p>Naturally, Munger’s apparent sale made a big splash. BABA has always been at least partially a Munger clone trade, and it appears that Munger’s conviction in the stock has diminished. Shortly after the 13F was released, investors took to Twitter offering opinions and running polls asking others about what had happened.</p><p>We may never know. But it doesn’t matter, because BABA ceased being a Munger clone trade long before the 13F came out. When Munger stepped down as Chairman of the Daily Journal, it created ambiguity as to the actual level of influence he will exercise over the firm’s portfolio going forward. The DJCO portfolio is no longer a Munger portfolio–or at least, not 100% a Munger portfolio. For this reason, investors will need a better thesis than “clone Munger because he is good.” In this article, I will attempt to advance such a thesis, based on valuation, competitive position and China&#39;s economic growth. First, though, let’s examine why it will not be possible to clone “Munger’s” BABA trades in future quarters.</p><p>Why Munger Can’t be Cloned Anymore</p><p>There are two reasons why it is impossible to clone Munger’s future BABA trades:</p><ol><li>Munger is no longer Chairman of the Daily Journal.</li><li>Some of DJCO’s potential trades are impossible to confirm.</li></ol><p>The first of these is easy enough to explain. When Munger was Chairman of the Daily Journal, he managed the investment portfolio. Now that he is no longer Chairman, he simply has the duties of a director. Munger could still volunteer to manage the portfolio, but the ultimate decisions would fall on Steven Myhill-Jones, the new CEO, or Tu To, the new CFO. The SEC filings announcing these new hires didn&#39;t say who&#39;d manage the portfolio.</p><p>The second reason why Munger can’t be cloned now is because some of his potential trades wouldn’t have to be disclosed. Munger is well known for not telling investors more than he has to. If he simply converted some of his NYSE ADRs to Hong Kong shares, as some think he did, then he is no longer under the obligation to report all of his holdings. As the SEC website states, you don’t have to disclose foreign listed shares in a 13F, even if your position is massive.</p><p><img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/5852b29d02869d997a4c8ce719caa59f\" tg-width=\"575\" tg-height=\"191\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\" width=\"100%\" height=\"auto\"/></p><p>What all this means is that cloning Munger’s BABA trades won’t be possible going forward. For those whose BABA position was little more than a Munger copycat, that has got to sting. Fortunately, the fundamentals-based thesis on the stock is not that difficult to comprehend, and can be explained in terms of four basic principles. In the next section I will explain that case in detail.</p><h2>The Bullish Thesis on BABA</h2><p>A strong bullish thesis on BABA can be built on four pillars:</p><ul><li>China’s economy.</li><li>BABA’s competitive position.</li><li>Financial health.</li><li>Valuation.</li></ul><p>I’ll look at each of these factors one by one, starting with China’s economy</p><h2>China’s Economy</h2><p>Despite the negative headlines you’re seeing these days, China’s economy is very strong. Its GDP growth was 8.1% in 2021. GDP has grown at 7.4% CAGR over 10 years. In 2020, when many countries entered recessions, China’s growth merely decelerated to 2.2%. With all of this growth, you might think that China is pumping itself full of debt. But think again! At 66.8, China’s government debt as a percentage of GDP is lower than that of the U.S., Canada, and the Eurozone. You may have heard stories about China’s “debt problem,” and claims of a 250% debt to GDP ratio. The figure is correct but it includes all debt, government and private. China’s government debt–the kind used to pay for fiscal stimulus–is low as a percentage of GDP. So China is growing very quickly and is fiscally sound enough to stimulate its economy should stimulation become necessary.</p><h2>BABA’s Competitive Position</h2><p>As we’ve seen, China has a high growth economy–the kind of economy that a company wants to operate in. That’s a great start but we still need to know about BABA’s competitive position.</p><p>As an eCommerce company, BABA has few rivals of similar scale. JD.com (JD) technically does more revenue than BABA does, but it has much smaller margins. It could beat Alibaba on scale but probably not on profitability. JD holds and sells inventory. It’s hard to beat a “platform” company like BABA when you have inventory costs. It eats into margins.</p><p>Pinduoduo (PDD) has been cited as a potential competitor to BABA but there’s just not much evidence of PDD moving beyond agricultural goods. Its group buying model has proven popular in China, but until it moves into other verticals, it’s not competing with huge chunks of Alibaba’s business.</p><p>Tencent (OTCPK:TCEHY) competes with BABA in one limited way: it has a payment app. The Chinese government forced BABA and Tencent to accept each other’s payment apps last year. So the competition between these two companies for share of payments has indeed increased.</p><h2>BABA’s Financials</h2><p>Alibaba’s long-term financials are excellent. The most recent calendar year was a bit of a departure from the long term trend, but that could turn around.</p><p>According to Seeking Alpha Quant, BABA’s five year CAGR growth rates in revenue, earnings and cash flows are:</p><ul><li>Revenue: 42%.</li><li>Net income: 11.3%.</li><li>Diluted EPS: 9.8%.</li><li>Free cash flow: 13.66%.</li></ul><p>These are pretty solid metrics. They were all much higher prior to this year, but the 2021 Chinese tech crackdown caused last year’s numbers to suffer. BABA did take some new costs in 2021, like a $2.8 billion fine and a higher tax rate. However, the fine was non-recurring and the higher tax rate could be “outgrown” with enough quarters of strong revenue gains.</p><p>At any rate, Alibaba has more than enough financial strength to ride out a few lacklustre quarters. Its balance sheet is one of the strongest in the world, boasting eye-popping metrics like:</p><ul><li>$276 billion in assets.</li><li>$100 billion in liabilities.</li><li>$176 billion in equity.</li><li>$45 billion in cash.</li><li>About $20 billion in debt (calculated from $5.09 billion in bonds $14.85 billion in long term bank loans).</li><li>$105 billion in current assets.</li><li>$64 billion in current liabilities.</li><li>A 0.2 debt to equity ratio.</li><li>A 1.64 current ratio.</li></ul><p>So we have debt that is very low as a proportion of shareholder equity, and high liquidity. Even BABA’s cash and equivalents outstrip its long term debt! This suggests a very solid balance sheet and a second-to-none ability to ride out a crisis.</p><h2>Valuation</h2><p>Valuation has always been one of the pillars on which the BABA bull case has rested. BABA stock is very cheap by almost every multiple you can think of. Some of its most encouraging value metrics include:</p><ul><li>Adjusted P/E: 11.</li><li>Price/sales: 1.96.</li><li>Price/book: 1.67.</li><li>Price/operating cash flow: 9.37.</li></ul><p>All of these multiples are comparatively low for the tech sector. For comparison, Amazon (AMZN), the closest comparable U.S. company, has a 46 adjusted P/E ratio.</p><p>BABA’s GAAP P/E ratio (25) is a little high, but the most recent quarter included large unrealized losses on the company’s stock portfolio. Adjusted earnings and cash from operations are more closely related to the company’s operating performance, and not surprisingly, they were much higher than GAAP earnings. This isn’t just selective choice of non-GAAP measures either: operating cash flow is a GAAP metric and Alibaba reports in accordance with U.S. GAAP.</p><p>As we’ve seen, Alibaba is cheap, profitable, and has high historical growth. Certainly this stock has many things to recommend it, even after Charlie Munger rode off into the sunset. However, there are still risks and challenges to the bullish thesis on Alibaba stock. </p><p>These are real risks that investors will need to keep in mind. But on balance, Alibaba looks like a solid value play today. It’s still growing its revenue, its cloud business is inching toward profitability, and its valuation is cheaper than ever before. On the whole, it looks like a sweet deal – with or without Munger on board.</p></body></html>","collect":0,"html":"<!DOCTYPE html>\n<html>\n<head>\n<meta http-equiv=\"Content-Type\" content=\"text/html; charset=utf-8\" />\n<meta name=\"viewport\" content=\"width=device-width,initial-scale=1.0,minimum-scale=1.0,maximum-scale=1.0,user-scalable=no\"/>\n<meta name=\"format-detection\" content=\"telephone=no,email=no,address=no\" />\n<title>Alibaba: Munger Is Not The Thesis</title>\n<style type=\"text/css\">\na,abbr,acronym,address,applet,article,aside,audio,b,big,blockquote,body,canvas,caption,center,cite,code,dd,del,details,dfn,div,dl,dt,\nem,embed,fieldset,figcaption,figure,footer,form,h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6,header,hgroup,html,i,iframe,img,ins,kbd,label,legend,li,mark,menu,nav,\nobject,ol,output,p,pre,q,ruby,s,samp,section,small,span,strike,strong,sub,summary,sup,table,tbody,td,tfoot,th,thead,time,tr,tt,u,ul,var,video{ font:inherit;margin:0;padding:0;vertical-align:baseline;border:0 }\nbody{ font-size:16px; line-height:1.5; color:#999; background:transparent; }\n.wrapper{ overflow:hidden;word-break:break-all;padding:10px; }\nh1,h2{ font-weight:normal; line-height:1.35; margin-bottom:.6em; }\nh3,h4,h5,h6{ line-height:1.35; margin-bottom:1em; }\nh1{ font-size:24px; }\nh2{ font-size:20px; }\nh3{ font-size:18px; }\nh4{ font-size:16px; }\nh5{ font-size:14px; }\nh6{ font-size:12px; }\np,ul,ol,blockquote,dl,table{ margin:1.2em 0; }\nul,ol{ margin-left:2em; }\nul{ list-style:disc; }\nol{ list-style:decimal; }\nli,li p{ margin:10px 0;}\nimg{ max-width:100%;display:block;margin:0 auto 1em; }\nblockquote{ color:#B5B2B1; border-left:3px solid #aaa; padding:1em; }\nstrong,b{font-weight:bold;}\nem,i{font-style:italic;}\ntable{ width:100%;border-collapse:collapse;border-spacing:1px;margin:1em 0;font-size:.9em; }\nth,td{ padding:5px;text-align:left;border:1px solid #aaa; }\nth{ font-weight:bold;background:#5d5d5d; }\n.symbol-link{font-weight:bold;}\n/* header{ border-bottom:1px solid #494756; } */\n.title{ margin:0 0 8px;line-height:1.3;color:#ddd; }\n.meta {color:#5e5c6d;font-size:13px;margin:0 0 .5em; }\na{text-decoration:none; color:#2a4b87;}\n.meta .head { display: inline-block; overflow: hidden}\n.head .h-thumb { width: 30px; height: 30px; margin: 0; padding: 0; border-radius: 50%; float: left;}\n.head .h-content { margin: 0; padding: 0 0 0 9px; float: left;}\n.head .h-name {font-size: 13px; color: #eee; margin: 0;}\n.head .h-time {font-size: 11px; color: #7E829C; margin: 0;line-height: 11px;}\n.small {font-size: 12.5px; display: inline-block; transform: scale(0.9); -webkit-transform: scale(0.9); transform-origin: left; -webkit-transform-origin: left;}\n.smaller {font-size: 12.5px; display: inline-block; transform: scale(0.8); -webkit-transform: scale(0.8); transform-origin: left; -webkit-transform-origin: left;}\n.bt-text {font-size: 12px;margin: 1.5em 0 0 0}\n.bt-text p {margin: 0}\n</style>\n</head>\n<body>\n<div class=\"wrapper\">\n<header>\n<h2 class=\"title\">\nAlibaba: Munger Is Not The Thesis\n</h2>\n\n<h4 class=\"meta\">\n\n\n2022-04-18 13:16 GMT+8&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href=https://seekingalpha.com/article/4501707-alibaba-munger-not-thesis><strong>Seeking Alpha</strong></a>\n\n\n</h4>\n\n</header>\n<article>\n<div>\n<p>SummaryRecently the Daily Journal's 13F revealed that the company trimmed its Alibaba position by 50%.It isn't necessarily the case that former Chairman Charlie Munger sold due to weakening conviction...</p>\n\n<a href=\"https://seekingalpha.com/article/4501707-alibaba-munger-not-thesis\">Web Link</a>\n\n</div>\n\n\n</article>\n</div>\n</body>\n</html>\n","type":0,"thumbnail":"","relate_stocks":{"BABA":"阿里巴巴"},"source_url":"https://seekingalpha.com/article/4501707-alibaba-munger-not-thesis","is_english":true,"share_image_url":"https://static.laohu8.com/e9f99090a1c2ed51c021029395664489","article_id":"1110595663","content_text":"SummaryRecently the Daily Journal's 13F revealed that the company trimmed its Alibaba position by 50%.It isn't necessarily the case that former Chairman Charlie Munger sold due to weakening conviction on BABA stock itself.However, Munger IS out of the picture in one very real way: he is no longer the Daily Journal's Chairman.For this reason, Alibaba can no longer be considered a Munger copy trade.In this article, I develop a fundamentals-based thesis for those who cloned Munger and now aren't sure what to do.Charlie Munger’s Alibaba Group (NYSE:BABA) investment was the talk of the town last week. In its Q1 13F, the Daily Journal Corp (DJCO) revealed that it had sold 50% of its stake in the Chinese tech company, after several quarters of averaging down. It wasn’t immediately clear whether Munger himself made the decision to sell the shares, as he had stepped down just days before the end of the quarter. Tu To was elected to serve as the company’s CFO on March 22. She signed all of the company’s SEC filings from the 22nd onward.There are many reasons why Munger (or somebody else) might have chosen to sell Alibaba. Not all of them necessarily reflect lower conviction in the stock. It’s possible that DJCO converted some of its NYSE shares to Hong Kong shares, or sold to cover a margin loan. Munger hasn’t spoken on the matter publicly yet, nor have any other DJCO officers, so we don’t know.Charlie Munger is thought to have influenced many investors who bought BABA stock in 2021. He began buying the stock around $226, averaging down after that. Many other investors made similar moves. It was shortly after Munger’s first 13F featuring Alibaba that internet communities focused on BABA really started to take off. Some were founded just days after the release.Naturally, Munger’s apparent sale made a big splash. BABA has always been at least partially a Munger clone trade, and it appears that Munger’s conviction in the stock has diminished. Shortly after the 13F was released, investors took to Twitter offering opinions and running polls asking others about what had happened.We may never know. But it doesn’t matter, because BABA ceased being a Munger clone trade long before the 13F came out. When Munger stepped down as Chairman of the Daily Journal, it created ambiguity as to the actual level of influence he will exercise over the firm’s portfolio going forward. The DJCO portfolio is no longer a Munger portfolio–or at least, not 100% a Munger portfolio. For this reason, investors will need a better thesis than “clone Munger because he is good.” In this article, I will attempt to advance such a thesis, based on valuation, competitive position and China's economic growth. First, though, let’s examine why it will not be possible to clone “Munger’s” BABA trades in future quarters.Why Munger Can’t be Cloned AnymoreThere are two reasons why it is impossible to clone Munger’s future BABA trades:Munger is no longer Chairman of the Daily Journal.Some of DJCO’s potential trades are impossible to confirm.The first of these is easy enough to explain. When Munger was Chairman of the Daily Journal, he managed the investment portfolio. Now that he is no longer Chairman, he simply has the duties of a director. Munger could still volunteer to manage the portfolio, but the ultimate decisions would fall on Steven Myhill-Jones, the new CEO, or Tu To, the new CFO. The SEC filings announcing these new hires didn't say who'd manage the portfolio.The second reason why Munger can’t be cloned now is because some of his potential trades wouldn’t have to be disclosed. Munger is well known for not telling investors more than he has to. If he simply converted some of his NYSE ADRs to Hong Kong shares, as some think he did, then he is no longer under the obligation to report all of his holdings. As the SEC website states, you don’t have to disclose foreign listed shares in a 13F, even if your position is massive.What all this means is that cloning Munger’s BABA trades won’t be possible going forward. For those whose BABA position was little more than a Munger copycat, that has got to sting. Fortunately, the fundamentals-based thesis on the stock is not that difficult to comprehend, and can be explained in terms of four basic principles. In the next section I will explain that case in detail.The Bullish Thesis on BABAA strong bullish thesis on BABA can be built on four pillars:China’s economy.BABA’s competitive position.Financial health.Valuation.I’ll look at each of these factors one by one, starting with China’s economyChina’s EconomyDespite the negative headlines you’re seeing these days, China’s economy is very strong. Its GDP growth was 8.1% in 2021. GDP has grown at 7.4% CAGR over 10 years. In 2020, when many countries entered recessions, China’s growth merely decelerated to 2.2%. With all of this growth, you might think that China is pumping itself full of debt. But think again! At 66.8, China’s government debt as a percentage of GDP is lower than that of the U.S., Canada, and the Eurozone. You may have heard stories about China’s “debt problem,” and claims of a 250% debt to GDP ratio. The figure is correct but it includes all debt, government and private. China’s government debt–the kind used to pay for fiscal stimulus–is low as a percentage of GDP. So China is growing very quickly and is fiscally sound enough to stimulate its economy should stimulation become necessary.BABA’s Competitive PositionAs we’ve seen, China has a high growth economy–the kind of economy that a company wants to operate in. That’s a great start but we still need to know about BABA’s competitive position.As an eCommerce company, BABA has few rivals of similar scale. JD.com (JD) technically does more revenue than BABA does, but it has much smaller margins. It could beat Alibaba on scale but probably not on profitability. JD holds and sells inventory. It’s hard to beat a “platform” company like BABA when you have inventory costs. It eats into margins.Pinduoduo (PDD) has been cited as a potential competitor to BABA but there’s just not much evidence of PDD moving beyond agricultural goods. Its group buying model has proven popular in China, but until it moves into other verticals, it’s not competing with huge chunks of Alibaba’s business.Tencent (OTCPK:TCEHY) competes with BABA in one limited way: it has a payment app. The Chinese government forced BABA and Tencent to accept each other’s payment apps last year. So the competition between these two companies for share of payments has indeed increased.BABA’s FinancialsAlibaba’s long-term financials are excellent. The most recent calendar year was a bit of a departure from the long term trend, but that could turn around.According to Seeking Alpha Quant, BABA’s five year CAGR growth rates in revenue, earnings and cash flows are:Revenue: 42%.Net income: 11.3%.Diluted EPS: 9.8%.Free cash flow: 13.66%.These are pretty solid metrics. They were all much higher prior to this year, but the 2021 Chinese tech crackdown caused last year’s numbers to suffer. BABA did take some new costs in 2021, like a $2.8 billion fine and a higher tax rate. However, the fine was non-recurring and the higher tax rate could be “outgrown” with enough quarters of strong revenue gains.At any rate, Alibaba has more than enough financial strength to ride out a few lacklustre quarters. Its balance sheet is one of the strongest in the world, boasting eye-popping metrics like:$276 billion in assets.$100 billion in liabilities.$176 billion in equity.$45 billion in cash.About $20 billion in debt (calculated from $5.09 billion in bonds $14.85 billion in long term bank loans).$105 billion in current assets.$64 billion in current liabilities.A 0.2 debt to equity ratio.A 1.64 current ratio.So we have debt that is very low as a proportion of shareholder equity, and high liquidity. Even BABA’s cash and equivalents outstrip its long term debt! This suggests a very solid balance sheet and a second-to-none ability to ride out a crisis.ValuationValuation has always been one of the pillars on which the BABA bull case has rested. BABA stock is very cheap by almost every multiple you can think of. Some of its most encouraging value metrics include:Adjusted P/E: 11.Price/sales: 1.96.Price/book: 1.67.Price/operating cash flow: 9.37.All of these multiples are comparatively low for the tech sector. For comparison, Amazon (AMZN), the closest comparable U.S. company, has a 46 adjusted P/E ratio.BABA’s GAAP P/E ratio (25) is a little high, but the most recent quarter included large unrealized losses on the company’s stock portfolio. Adjusted earnings and cash from operations are more closely related to the company’s operating performance, and not surprisingly, they were much higher than GAAP earnings. This isn’t just selective choice of non-GAAP measures either: operating cash flow is a GAAP metric and Alibaba reports in accordance with U.S. GAAP.As we’ve seen, Alibaba is cheap, profitable, and has high historical growth. Certainly this stock has many things to recommend it, even after Charlie Munger rode off into the sunset. However, there are still risks and challenges to the bullish thesis on Alibaba stock. These are real risks that investors will need to keep in mind. But on balance, Alibaba looks like a solid value play today. It’s still growing its revenue, its cloud business is inching toward profitability, and its valuation is cheaper than ever before. On the whole, it looks like a sweet deal – with or without Munger on board.","news_type":1},"isVote":1,"likeStatus":false,"favoriteStatus":false,"reportStatus":false,"tweetType":1,"langContent":"EN"},{"id":9081460994,"gmtCreate":1650266699730,"gmtModify":1676534682534,"author":{"id":"3581244873474125","authorId":"3581244873474125","name":"US_watchlist","avatar":"https://static.tigerbbs.com/c45e6bbe1cefb0fecde067a20b3c788f","vip":1,"crmLevel":2,"crmLevelSwitch":0},"htmlText":"Please like and comment. Thanks","listText":"Please like and comment. Thanks","text":"Please like and comment. Thanks","images":[],"top":1,"highlighted":1,"essential":1,"paper":1,"likeSize":3,"commentSize":0,"repostSize":0,"link":"https://ttm.financial/post/9081460994","repostId":1110595663,"repostType":4,"repost":{"id":"1110595663","pubTimestamp":1650258996,"share":"https://www.laohu8.com/m/news/1110595663?lang=&edition=full","pubTime":"2022-04-18 13:16","market":"us","language":"en","title":"Alibaba: Munger Is Not The Thesis","url":"https://stock-news.laohu8.com/highlight/detail?id=1110595663","media":"Seeking Alpha","summary":"SummaryRecently the Daily Journal's 13F revealed that the company trimmed its Alibaba position by 50%.It isn't necessarily the case that former Chairman Charlie Munger sold due to weakening conviction","content":"<html><head></head><body><p>Summary</p><ul><li>Recently the Daily Journal&#39;s 13F revealed that the company trimmed its Alibaba position by 50%.</li><li>It isn&#39;t necessarily the case that former Chairman Charlie Munger sold due to weakening conviction on BABA stock itself.</li><li>However, Munger IS out of the picture in one very real way: he is no longer the Daily Journal&#39;s Chairman.</li><li>For this reason, Alibaba can no longer be considered a Munger copy trade.</li><li>In this article, I develop a fundamentals-based thesis for those who cloned Munger and now aren&#39;t sure what to do.</li></ul><p>Charlie Munger’s Alibaba Group (NYSE:BABA) investment was the talk of the town last week. In its Q1 13F, the Daily Journal Corp (DJCO) revealed that it had sold 50% of its stake in the Chinese tech company, after several quarters of averaging down. It wasn’t immediately clear whether Munger himself made the decision to sell the shares, as he had stepped down just days before the end of the quarter. Tu To was elected to serve as the company’s CFO on March 22. She signed all of the company’s SEC filings from the 22nd onward.</p><p>There are many reasons why Munger (or somebody else) might have chosen to sell Alibaba. Not all of them necessarily reflect lower conviction in the stock. It’s possible that DJCO converted some of its NYSE shares to Hong Kong shares, or sold to cover a margin loan. Munger hasn’t spoken on the matter publicly yet, nor have any other DJCO officers, so we don’t know.</p><p>Charlie Munger is thought to have influenced many investors who bought BABA stock in 2021. He began buying the stock around $226, averaging down after that. Many other investors made similar moves. It was shortly after Munger’s first 13F featuring Alibaba that internet communities focused on BABA really started to take off. Some were founded just days after the release.</p><p>Naturally, Munger’s apparent sale made a big splash. BABA has always been at least partially a Munger clone trade, and it appears that Munger’s conviction in the stock has diminished. Shortly after the 13F was released, investors took to Twitter offering opinions and running polls asking others about what had happened.</p><p>We may never know. But it doesn’t matter, because BABA ceased being a Munger clone trade long before the 13F came out. When Munger stepped down as Chairman of the Daily Journal, it created ambiguity as to the actual level of influence he will exercise over the firm’s portfolio going forward. The DJCO portfolio is no longer a Munger portfolio–or at least, not 100% a Munger portfolio. For this reason, investors will need a better thesis than “clone Munger because he is good.” In this article, I will attempt to advance such a thesis, based on valuation, competitive position and China&#39;s economic growth. First, though, let’s examine why it will not be possible to clone “Munger’s” BABA trades in future quarters.</p><p>Why Munger Can’t be Cloned Anymore</p><p>There are two reasons why it is impossible to clone Munger’s future BABA trades:</p><ol><li>Munger is no longer Chairman of the Daily Journal.</li><li>Some of DJCO’s potential trades are impossible to confirm.</li></ol><p>The first of these is easy enough to explain. When Munger was Chairman of the Daily Journal, he managed the investment portfolio. Now that he is no longer Chairman, he simply has the duties of a director. Munger could still volunteer to manage the portfolio, but the ultimate decisions would fall on Steven Myhill-Jones, the new CEO, or Tu To, the new CFO. The SEC filings announcing these new hires didn&#39;t say who&#39;d manage the portfolio.</p><p>The second reason why Munger can’t be cloned now is because some of his potential trades wouldn’t have to be disclosed. Munger is well known for not telling investors more than he has to. If he simply converted some of his NYSE ADRs to Hong Kong shares, as some think he did, then he is no longer under the obligation to report all of his holdings. As the SEC website states, you don’t have to disclose foreign listed shares in a 13F, even if your position is massive.</p><p><img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/5852b29d02869d997a4c8ce719caa59f\" tg-width=\"575\" tg-height=\"191\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\" width=\"100%\" height=\"auto\"/></p><p>What all this means is that cloning Munger’s BABA trades won’t be possible going forward. For those whose BABA position was little more than a Munger copycat, that has got to sting. Fortunately, the fundamentals-based thesis on the stock is not that difficult to comprehend, and can be explained in terms of four basic principles. In the next section I will explain that case in detail.</p><h2>The Bullish Thesis on BABA</h2><p>A strong bullish thesis on BABA can be built on four pillars:</p><ul><li>China’s economy.</li><li>BABA’s competitive position.</li><li>Financial health.</li><li>Valuation.</li></ul><p>I’ll look at each of these factors one by one, starting with China’s economy</p><h2>China’s Economy</h2><p>Despite the negative headlines you’re seeing these days, China’s economy is very strong. Its GDP growth was 8.1% in 2021. GDP has grown at 7.4% CAGR over 10 years. In 2020, when many countries entered recessions, China’s growth merely decelerated to 2.2%. With all of this growth, you might think that China is pumping itself full of debt. But think again! At 66.8, China’s government debt as a percentage of GDP is lower than that of the U.S., Canada, and the Eurozone. You may have heard stories about China’s “debt problem,” and claims of a 250% debt to GDP ratio. The figure is correct but it includes all debt, government and private. China’s government debt–the kind used to pay for fiscal stimulus–is low as a percentage of GDP. So China is growing very quickly and is fiscally sound enough to stimulate its economy should stimulation become necessary.</p><h2>BABA’s Competitive Position</h2><p>As we’ve seen, China has a high growth economy–the kind of economy that a company wants to operate in. That’s a great start but we still need to know about BABA’s competitive position.</p><p>As an eCommerce company, BABA has few rivals of similar scale. JD.com (JD) technically does more revenue than BABA does, but it has much smaller margins. It could beat Alibaba on scale but probably not on profitability. JD holds and sells inventory. It’s hard to beat a “platform” company like BABA when you have inventory costs. It eats into margins.</p><p>Pinduoduo (PDD) has been cited as a potential competitor to BABA but there’s just not much evidence of PDD moving beyond agricultural goods. Its group buying model has proven popular in China, but until it moves into other verticals, it’s not competing with huge chunks of Alibaba’s business.</p><p>Tencent (OTCPK:TCEHY) competes with BABA in one limited way: it has a payment app. The Chinese government forced BABA and Tencent to accept each other’s payment apps last year. So the competition between these two companies for share of payments has indeed increased.</p><h2>BABA’s Financials</h2><p>Alibaba’s long-term financials are excellent. The most recent calendar year was a bit of a departure from the long term trend, but that could turn around.</p><p>According to Seeking Alpha Quant, BABA’s five year CAGR growth rates in revenue, earnings and cash flows are:</p><ul><li>Revenue: 42%.</li><li>Net income: 11.3%.</li><li>Diluted EPS: 9.8%.</li><li>Free cash flow: 13.66%.</li></ul><p>These are pretty solid metrics. They were all much higher prior to this year, but the 2021 Chinese tech crackdown caused last year’s numbers to suffer. BABA did take some new costs in 2021, like a $2.8 billion fine and a higher tax rate. However, the fine was non-recurring and the higher tax rate could be “outgrown” with enough quarters of strong revenue gains.</p><p>At any rate, Alibaba has more than enough financial strength to ride out a few lacklustre quarters. Its balance sheet is one of the strongest in the world, boasting eye-popping metrics like:</p><ul><li>$276 billion in assets.</li><li>$100 billion in liabilities.</li><li>$176 billion in equity.</li><li>$45 billion in cash.</li><li>About $20 billion in debt (calculated from $5.09 billion in bonds $14.85 billion in long term bank loans).</li><li>$105 billion in current assets.</li><li>$64 billion in current liabilities.</li><li>A 0.2 debt to equity ratio.</li><li>A 1.64 current ratio.</li></ul><p>So we have debt that is very low as a proportion of shareholder equity, and high liquidity. Even BABA’s cash and equivalents outstrip its long term debt! This suggests a very solid balance sheet and a second-to-none ability to ride out a crisis.</p><h2>Valuation</h2><p>Valuation has always been one of the pillars on which the BABA bull case has rested. BABA stock is very cheap by almost every multiple you can think of. Some of its most encouraging value metrics include:</p><ul><li>Adjusted P/E: 11.</li><li>Price/sales: 1.96.</li><li>Price/book: 1.67.</li><li>Price/operating cash flow: 9.37.</li></ul><p>All of these multiples are comparatively low for the tech sector. For comparison, Amazon (AMZN), the closest comparable U.S. company, has a 46 adjusted P/E ratio.</p><p>BABA’s GAAP P/E ratio (25) is a little high, but the most recent quarter included large unrealized losses on the company’s stock portfolio. Adjusted earnings and cash from operations are more closely related to the company’s operating performance, and not surprisingly, they were much higher than GAAP earnings. This isn’t just selective choice of non-GAAP measures either: operating cash flow is a GAAP metric and Alibaba reports in accordance with U.S. GAAP.</p><p>As we’ve seen, Alibaba is cheap, profitable, and has high historical growth. Certainly this stock has many things to recommend it, even after Charlie Munger rode off into the sunset. However, there are still risks and challenges to the bullish thesis on Alibaba stock. </p><p>These are real risks that investors will need to keep in mind. But on balance, Alibaba looks like a solid value play today. It’s still growing its revenue, its cloud business is inching toward profitability, and its valuation is cheaper than ever before. On the whole, it looks like a sweet deal – with or without Munger on board.</p></body></html>","collect":0,"html":"<!DOCTYPE html>\n<html>\n<head>\n<meta http-equiv=\"Content-Type\" content=\"text/html; charset=utf-8\" />\n<meta name=\"viewport\" content=\"width=device-width,initial-scale=1.0,minimum-scale=1.0,maximum-scale=1.0,user-scalable=no\"/>\n<meta name=\"format-detection\" content=\"telephone=no,email=no,address=no\" />\n<title>Alibaba: Munger Is Not The Thesis</title>\n<style type=\"text/css\">\na,abbr,acronym,address,applet,article,aside,audio,b,big,blockquote,body,canvas,caption,center,cite,code,dd,del,details,dfn,div,dl,dt,\nem,embed,fieldset,figcaption,figure,footer,form,h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6,header,hgroup,html,i,iframe,img,ins,kbd,label,legend,li,mark,menu,nav,\nobject,ol,output,p,pre,q,ruby,s,samp,section,small,span,strike,strong,sub,summary,sup,table,tbody,td,tfoot,th,thead,time,tr,tt,u,ul,var,video{ font:inherit;margin:0;padding:0;vertical-align:baseline;border:0 }\nbody{ font-size:16px; line-height:1.5; color:#999; background:transparent; }\n.wrapper{ overflow:hidden;word-break:break-all;padding:10px; }\nh1,h2{ font-weight:normal; line-height:1.35; margin-bottom:.6em; }\nh3,h4,h5,h6{ line-height:1.35; margin-bottom:1em; }\nh1{ font-size:24px; }\nh2{ font-size:20px; }\nh3{ font-size:18px; }\nh4{ font-size:16px; }\nh5{ font-size:14px; }\nh6{ font-size:12px; }\np,ul,ol,blockquote,dl,table{ margin:1.2em 0; }\nul,ol{ margin-left:2em; }\nul{ list-style:disc; }\nol{ list-style:decimal; }\nli,li p{ margin:10px 0;}\nimg{ max-width:100%;display:block;margin:0 auto 1em; }\nblockquote{ color:#B5B2B1; border-left:3px solid #aaa; padding:1em; }\nstrong,b{font-weight:bold;}\nem,i{font-style:italic;}\ntable{ width:100%;border-collapse:collapse;border-spacing:1px;margin:1em 0;font-size:.9em; }\nth,td{ padding:5px;text-align:left;border:1px solid #aaa; }\nth{ font-weight:bold;background:#5d5d5d; }\n.symbol-link{font-weight:bold;}\n/* header{ border-bottom:1px solid #494756; } */\n.title{ margin:0 0 8px;line-height:1.3;color:#ddd; }\n.meta {color:#5e5c6d;font-size:13px;margin:0 0 .5em; }\na{text-decoration:none; color:#2a4b87;}\n.meta .head { display: inline-block; overflow: hidden}\n.head .h-thumb { width: 30px; height: 30px; margin: 0; padding: 0; border-radius: 50%; float: left;}\n.head .h-content { margin: 0; padding: 0 0 0 9px; float: left;}\n.head .h-name {font-size: 13px; color: #eee; margin: 0;}\n.head .h-time {font-size: 11px; color: #7E829C; margin: 0;line-height: 11px;}\n.small {font-size: 12.5px; display: inline-block; transform: scale(0.9); -webkit-transform: scale(0.9); transform-origin: left; -webkit-transform-origin: left;}\n.smaller {font-size: 12.5px; display: inline-block; transform: scale(0.8); -webkit-transform: scale(0.8); transform-origin: left; -webkit-transform-origin: left;}\n.bt-text {font-size: 12px;margin: 1.5em 0 0 0}\n.bt-text p {margin: 0}\n</style>\n</head>\n<body>\n<div class=\"wrapper\">\n<header>\n<h2 class=\"title\">\nAlibaba: Munger Is Not The Thesis\n</h2>\n\n<h4 class=\"meta\">\n\n\n2022-04-18 13:16 GMT+8&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href=https://seekingalpha.com/article/4501707-alibaba-munger-not-thesis><strong>Seeking Alpha</strong></a>\n\n\n</h4>\n\n</header>\n<article>\n<div>\n<p>SummaryRecently the Daily Journal's 13F revealed that the company trimmed its Alibaba position by 50%.It isn't necessarily the case that former Chairman Charlie Munger sold due to weakening conviction...</p>\n\n<a href=\"https://seekingalpha.com/article/4501707-alibaba-munger-not-thesis\">Web Link</a>\n\n</div>\n\n\n</article>\n</div>\n</body>\n</html>\n","type":0,"thumbnail":"","relate_stocks":{"BABA":"阿里巴巴"},"source_url":"https://seekingalpha.com/article/4501707-alibaba-munger-not-thesis","is_english":true,"share_image_url":"https://static.laohu8.com/e9f99090a1c2ed51c021029395664489","article_id":"1110595663","content_text":"SummaryRecently the Daily Journal's 13F revealed that the company trimmed its Alibaba position by 50%.It isn't necessarily the case that former Chairman Charlie Munger sold due to weakening conviction on BABA stock itself.However, Munger IS out of the picture in one very real way: he is no longer the Daily Journal's Chairman.For this reason, Alibaba can no longer be considered a Munger copy trade.In this article, I develop a fundamentals-based thesis for those who cloned Munger and now aren't sure what to do.Charlie Munger’s Alibaba Group (NYSE:BABA) investment was the talk of the town last week. In its Q1 13F, the Daily Journal Corp (DJCO) revealed that it had sold 50% of its stake in the Chinese tech company, after several quarters of averaging down. It wasn’t immediately clear whether Munger himself made the decision to sell the shares, as he had stepped down just days before the end of the quarter. Tu To was elected to serve as the company’s CFO on March 22. She signed all of the company’s SEC filings from the 22nd onward.There are many reasons why Munger (or somebody else) might have chosen to sell Alibaba. Not all of them necessarily reflect lower conviction in the stock. It’s possible that DJCO converted some of its NYSE shares to Hong Kong shares, or sold to cover a margin loan. Munger hasn’t spoken on the matter publicly yet, nor have any other DJCO officers, so we don’t know.Charlie Munger is thought to have influenced many investors who bought BABA stock in 2021. He began buying the stock around $226, averaging down after that. Many other investors made similar moves. It was shortly after Munger’s first 13F featuring Alibaba that internet communities focused on BABA really started to take off. Some were founded just days after the release.Naturally, Munger’s apparent sale made a big splash. BABA has always been at least partially a Munger clone trade, and it appears that Munger’s conviction in the stock has diminished. Shortly after the 13F was released, investors took to Twitter offering opinions and running polls asking others about what had happened.We may never know. But it doesn’t matter, because BABA ceased being a Munger clone trade long before the 13F came out. When Munger stepped down as Chairman of the Daily Journal, it created ambiguity as to the actual level of influence he will exercise over the firm’s portfolio going forward. The DJCO portfolio is no longer a Munger portfolio–or at least, not 100% a Munger portfolio. For this reason, investors will need a better thesis than “clone Munger because he is good.” In this article, I will attempt to advance such a thesis, based on valuation, competitive position and China's economic growth. First, though, let’s examine why it will not be possible to clone “Munger’s” BABA trades in future quarters.Why Munger Can’t be Cloned AnymoreThere are two reasons why it is impossible to clone Munger’s future BABA trades:Munger is no longer Chairman of the Daily Journal.Some of DJCO’s potential trades are impossible to confirm.The first of these is easy enough to explain. When Munger was Chairman of the Daily Journal, he managed the investment portfolio. Now that he is no longer Chairman, he simply has the duties of a director. Munger could still volunteer to manage the portfolio, but the ultimate decisions would fall on Steven Myhill-Jones, the new CEO, or Tu To, the new CFO. The SEC filings announcing these new hires didn't say who'd manage the portfolio.The second reason why Munger can’t be cloned now is because some of his potential trades wouldn’t have to be disclosed. Munger is well known for not telling investors more than he has to. If he simply converted some of his NYSE ADRs to Hong Kong shares, as some think he did, then he is no longer under the obligation to report all of his holdings. As the SEC website states, you don’t have to disclose foreign listed shares in a 13F, even if your position is massive.What all this means is that cloning Munger’s BABA trades won’t be possible going forward. For those whose BABA position was little more than a Munger copycat, that has got to sting. Fortunately, the fundamentals-based thesis on the stock is not that difficult to comprehend, and can be explained in terms of four basic principles. In the next section I will explain that case in detail.The Bullish Thesis on BABAA strong bullish thesis on BABA can be built on four pillars:China’s economy.BABA’s competitive position.Financial health.Valuation.I’ll look at each of these factors one by one, starting with China’s economyChina’s EconomyDespite the negative headlines you’re seeing these days, China’s economy is very strong. Its GDP growth was 8.1% in 2021. GDP has grown at 7.4% CAGR over 10 years. In 2020, when many countries entered recessions, China’s growth merely decelerated to 2.2%. With all of this growth, you might think that China is pumping itself full of debt. But think again! At 66.8, China’s government debt as a percentage of GDP is lower than that of the U.S., Canada, and the Eurozone. You may have heard stories about China’s “debt problem,” and claims of a 250% debt to GDP ratio. The figure is correct but it includes all debt, government and private. China’s government debt–the kind used to pay for fiscal stimulus–is low as a percentage of GDP. So China is growing very quickly and is fiscally sound enough to stimulate its economy should stimulation become necessary.BABA’s Competitive PositionAs we’ve seen, China has a high growth economy–the kind of economy that a company wants to operate in. That’s a great start but we still need to know about BABA’s competitive position.As an eCommerce company, BABA has few rivals of similar scale. JD.com (JD) technically does more revenue than BABA does, but it has much smaller margins. It could beat Alibaba on scale but probably not on profitability. JD holds and sells inventory. It’s hard to beat a “platform” company like BABA when you have inventory costs. It eats into margins.Pinduoduo (PDD) has been cited as a potential competitor to BABA but there’s just not much evidence of PDD moving beyond agricultural goods. Its group buying model has proven popular in China, but until it moves into other verticals, it’s not competing with huge chunks of Alibaba’s business.Tencent (OTCPK:TCEHY) competes with BABA in one limited way: it has a payment app. The Chinese government forced BABA and Tencent to accept each other’s payment apps last year. So the competition between these two companies for share of payments has indeed increased.BABA’s FinancialsAlibaba’s long-term financials are excellent. The most recent calendar year was a bit of a departure from the long term trend, but that could turn around.According to Seeking Alpha Quant, BABA’s five year CAGR growth rates in revenue, earnings and cash flows are:Revenue: 42%.Net income: 11.3%.Diluted EPS: 9.8%.Free cash flow: 13.66%.These are pretty solid metrics. They were all much higher prior to this year, but the 2021 Chinese tech crackdown caused last year’s numbers to suffer. BABA did take some new costs in 2021, like a $2.8 billion fine and a higher tax rate. However, the fine was non-recurring and the higher tax rate could be “outgrown” with enough quarters of strong revenue gains.At any rate, Alibaba has more than enough financial strength to ride out a few lacklustre quarters. Its balance sheet is one of the strongest in the world, boasting eye-popping metrics like:$276 billion in assets.$100 billion in liabilities.$176 billion in equity.$45 billion in cash.About $20 billion in debt (calculated from $5.09 billion in bonds $14.85 billion in long term bank loans).$105 billion in current assets.$64 billion in current liabilities.A 0.2 debt to equity ratio.A 1.64 current ratio.So we have debt that is very low as a proportion of shareholder equity, and high liquidity. Even BABA’s cash and equivalents outstrip its long term debt! This suggests a very solid balance sheet and a second-to-none ability to ride out a crisis.ValuationValuation has always been one of the pillars on which the BABA bull case has rested. BABA stock is very cheap by almost every multiple you can think of. Some of its most encouraging value metrics include:Adjusted P/E: 11.Price/sales: 1.96.Price/book: 1.67.Price/operating cash flow: 9.37.All of these multiples are comparatively low for the tech sector. For comparison, Amazon (AMZN), the closest comparable U.S. company, has a 46 adjusted P/E ratio.BABA’s GAAP P/E ratio (25) is a little high, but the most recent quarter included large unrealized losses on the company’s stock portfolio. Adjusted earnings and cash from operations are more closely related to the company’s operating performance, and not surprisingly, they were much higher than GAAP earnings. This isn’t just selective choice of non-GAAP measures either: operating cash flow is a GAAP metric and Alibaba reports in accordance with U.S. GAAP.As we’ve seen, Alibaba is cheap, profitable, and has high historical growth. Certainly this stock has many things to recommend it, even after Charlie Munger rode off into the sunset. However, there are still risks and challenges to the bullish thesis on Alibaba stock. These are real risks that investors will need to keep in mind. But on balance, Alibaba looks like a solid value play today. It’s still growing its revenue, its cloud business is inching toward profitability, and its valuation is cheaper than ever before. On the whole, it looks like a sweet deal – with or without Munger on board.","news_type":1},"isVote":1,"likeStatus":false,"favoriteStatus":false,"reportStatus":false,"tweetType":1,"langContent":"EN"},{"id":9081486797,"gmtCreate":1650266213330,"gmtModify":1676534682432,"author":{"id":"3581803494981906","authorId":"3581803494981906","name":"haoren","avatar":"https://static.tigerbbs.com/959cadb42575ede705b330aa58d68a63","vip":1,"crmLevel":6,"crmLevelSwitch":1},"htmlText":"Nice","listText":"Nice","text":"Nice","images":[],"top":1,"highlighted":1,"essential":1,"paper":1,"likeSize":3,"commentSize":0,"repostSize":0,"link":"https://ttm.financial/post/9081486797","repostId":1110595663,"repostType":4,"repost":{"id":"1110595663","pubTimestamp":1650258996,"share":"https://www.laohu8.com/m/news/1110595663?lang=&edition=full","pubTime":"2022-04-18 13:16","market":"us","language":"en","title":"Alibaba: Munger Is Not The Thesis","url":"https://stock-news.laohu8.com/highlight/detail?id=1110595663","media":"Seeking Alpha","summary":"SummaryRecently the Daily Journal's 13F revealed that the company trimmed its Alibaba position by 50%.It isn't necessarily the case that former Chairman Charlie Munger sold due to weakening conviction","content":"<html><head></head><body><p>Summary</p><ul><li>Recently the Daily Journal&#39;s 13F revealed that the company trimmed its Alibaba position by 50%.</li><li>It isn&#39;t necessarily the case that former Chairman Charlie Munger sold due to weakening conviction on BABA stock itself.</li><li>However, Munger IS out of the picture in one very real way: he is no longer the Daily Journal&#39;s Chairman.</li><li>For this reason, Alibaba can no longer be considered a Munger copy trade.</li><li>In this article, I develop a fundamentals-based thesis for those who cloned Munger and now aren&#39;t sure what to do.</li></ul><p>Charlie Munger’s Alibaba Group (NYSE:BABA) investment was the talk of the town last week. In its Q1 13F, the Daily Journal Corp (DJCO) revealed that it had sold 50% of its stake in the Chinese tech company, after several quarters of averaging down. It wasn’t immediately clear whether Munger himself made the decision to sell the shares, as he had stepped down just days before the end of the quarter. Tu To was elected to serve as the company’s CFO on March 22. She signed all of the company’s SEC filings from the 22nd onward.</p><p>There are many reasons why Munger (or somebody else) might have chosen to sell Alibaba. Not all of them necessarily reflect lower conviction in the stock. It’s possible that DJCO converted some of its NYSE shares to Hong Kong shares, or sold to cover a margin loan. Munger hasn’t spoken on the matter publicly yet, nor have any other DJCO officers, so we don’t know.</p><p>Charlie Munger is thought to have influenced many investors who bought BABA stock in 2021. He began buying the stock around $226, averaging down after that. Many other investors made similar moves. It was shortly after Munger’s first 13F featuring Alibaba that internet communities focused on BABA really started to take off. Some were founded just days after the release.</p><p>Naturally, Munger’s apparent sale made a big splash. BABA has always been at least partially a Munger clone trade, and it appears that Munger’s conviction in the stock has diminished. Shortly after the 13F was released, investors took to Twitter offering opinions and running polls asking others about what had happened.</p><p>We may never know. But it doesn’t matter, because BABA ceased being a Munger clone trade long before the 13F came out. When Munger stepped down as Chairman of the Daily Journal, it created ambiguity as to the actual level of influence he will exercise over the firm’s portfolio going forward. The DJCO portfolio is no longer a Munger portfolio–or at least, not 100% a Munger portfolio. For this reason, investors will need a better thesis than “clone Munger because he is good.” In this article, I will attempt to advance such a thesis, based on valuation, competitive position and China&#39;s economic growth. First, though, let’s examine why it will not be possible to clone “Munger’s” BABA trades in future quarters.</p><p>Why Munger Can’t be Cloned Anymore</p><p>There are two reasons why it is impossible to clone Munger’s future BABA trades:</p><ol><li>Munger is no longer Chairman of the Daily Journal.</li><li>Some of DJCO’s potential trades are impossible to confirm.</li></ol><p>The first of these is easy enough to explain. When Munger was Chairman of the Daily Journal, he managed the investment portfolio. Now that he is no longer Chairman, he simply has the duties of a director. Munger could still volunteer to manage the portfolio, but the ultimate decisions would fall on Steven Myhill-Jones, the new CEO, or Tu To, the new CFO. The SEC filings announcing these new hires didn&#39;t say who&#39;d manage the portfolio.</p><p>The second reason why Munger can’t be cloned now is because some of his potential trades wouldn’t have to be disclosed. Munger is well known for not telling investors more than he has to. If he simply converted some of his NYSE ADRs to Hong Kong shares, as some think he did, then he is no longer under the obligation to report all of his holdings. As the SEC website states, you don’t have to disclose foreign listed shares in a 13F, even if your position is massive.</p><p><img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/5852b29d02869d997a4c8ce719caa59f\" tg-width=\"575\" tg-height=\"191\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\" width=\"100%\" height=\"auto\"/></p><p>What all this means is that cloning Munger’s BABA trades won’t be possible going forward. For those whose BABA position was little more than a Munger copycat, that has got to sting. Fortunately, the fundamentals-based thesis on the stock is not that difficult to comprehend, and can be explained in terms of four basic principles. In the next section I will explain that case in detail.</p><h2>The Bullish Thesis on BABA</h2><p>A strong bullish thesis on BABA can be built on four pillars:</p><ul><li>China’s economy.</li><li>BABA’s competitive position.</li><li>Financial health.</li><li>Valuation.</li></ul><p>I’ll look at each of these factors one by one, starting with China’s economy</p><h2>China’s Economy</h2><p>Despite the negative headlines you’re seeing these days, China’s economy is very strong. Its GDP growth was 8.1% in 2021. GDP has grown at 7.4% CAGR over 10 years. In 2020, when many countries entered recessions, China’s growth merely decelerated to 2.2%. With all of this growth, you might think that China is pumping itself full of debt. But think again! At 66.8, China’s government debt as a percentage of GDP is lower than that of the U.S., Canada, and the Eurozone. You may have heard stories about China’s “debt problem,” and claims of a 250% debt to GDP ratio. The figure is correct but it includes all debt, government and private. China’s government debt–the kind used to pay for fiscal stimulus–is low as a percentage of GDP. So China is growing very quickly and is fiscally sound enough to stimulate its economy should stimulation become necessary.</p><h2>BABA’s Competitive Position</h2><p>As we’ve seen, China has a high growth economy–the kind of economy that a company wants to operate in. That’s a great start but we still need to know about BABA’s competitive position.</p><p>As an eCommerce company, BABA has few rivals of similar scale. JD.com (JD) technically does more revenue than BABA does, but it has much smaller margins. It could beat Alibaba on scale but probably not on profitability. JD holds and sells inventory. It’s hard to beat a “platform” company like BABA when you have inventory costs. It eats into margins.</p><p>Pinduoduo (PDD) has been cited as a potential competitor to BABA but there’s just not much evidence of PDD moving beyond agricultural goods. Its group buying model has proven popular in China, but until it moves into other verticals, it’s not competing with huge chunks of Alibaba’s business.</p><p>Tencent (OTCPK:TCEHY) competes with BABA in one limited way: it has a payment app. The Chinese government forced BABA and Tencent to accept each other’s payment apps last year. So the competition between these two companies for share of payments has indeed increased.</p><h2>BABA’s Financials</h2><p>Alibaba’s long-term financials are excellent. The most recent calendar year was a bit of a departure from the long term trend, but that could turn around.</p><p>According to Seeking Alpha Quant, BABA’s five year CAGR growth rates in revenue, earnings and cash flows are:</p><ul><li>Revenue: 42%.</li><li>Net income: 11.3%.</li><li>Diluted EPS: 9.8%.</li><li>Free cash flow: 13.66%.</li></ul><p>These are pretty solid metrics. They were all much higher prior to this year, but the 2021 Chinese tech crackdown caused last year’s numbers to suffer. BABA did take some new costs in 2021, like a $2.8 billion fine and a higher tax rate. However, the fine was non-recurring and the higher tax rate could be “outgrown” with enough quarters of strong revenue gains.</p><p>At any rate, Alibaba has more than enough financial strength to ride out a few lacklustre quarters. Its balance sheet is one of the strongest in the world, boasting eye-popping metrics like:</p><ul><li>$276 billion in assets.</li><li>$100 billion in liabilities.</li><li>$176 billion in equity.</li><li>$45 billion in cash.</li><li>About $20 billion in debt (calculated from $5.09 billion in bonds $14.85 billion in long term bank loans).</li><li>$105 billion in current assets.</li><li>$64 billion in current liabilities.</li><li>A 0.2 debt to equity ratio.</li><li>A 1.64 current ratio.</li></ul><p>So we have debt that is very low as a proportion of shareholder equity, and high liquidity. Even BABA’s cash and equivalents outstrip its long term debt! This suggests a very solid balance sheet and a second-to-none ability to ride out a crisis.</p><h2>Valuation</h2><p>Valuation has always been one of the pillars on which the BABA bull case has rested. BABA stock is very cheap by almost every multiple you can think of. Some of its most encouraging value metrics include:</p><ul><li>Adjusted P/E: 11.</li><li>Price/sales: 1.96.</li><li>Price/book: 1.67.</li><li>Price/operating cash flow: 9.37.</li></ul><p>All of these multiples are comparatively low for the tech sector. For comparison, Amazon (AMZN), the closest comparable U.S. company, has a 46 adjusted P/E ratio.</p><p>BABA’s GAAP P/E ratio (25) is a little high, but the most recent quarter included large unrealized losses on the company’s stock portfolio. Adjusted earnings and cash from operations are more closely related to the company’s operating performance, and not surprisingly, they were much higher than GAAP earnings. This isn’t just selective choice of non-GAAP measures either: operating cash flow is a GAAP metric and Alibaba reports in accordance with U.S. GAAP.</p><p>As we’ve seen, Alibaba is cheap, profitable, and has high historical growth. Certainly this stock has many things to recommend it, even after Charlie Munger rode off into the sunset. However, there are still risks and challenges to the bullish thesis on Alibaba stock. </p><p>These are real risks that investors will need to keep in mind. But on balance, Alibaba looks like a solid value play today. It’s still growing its revenue, its cloud business is inching toward profitability, and its valuation is cheaper than ever before. On the whole, it looks like a sweet deal – with or without Munger on board.</p></body></html>","collect":0,"html":"<!DOCTYPE html>\n<html>\n<head>\n<meta http-equiv=\"Content-Type\" content=\"text/html; charset=utf-8\" />\n<meta name=\"viewport\" content=\"width=device-width,initial-scale=1.0,minimum-scale=1.0,maximum-scale=1.0,user-scalable=no\"/>\n<meta name=\"format-detection\" content=\"telephone=no,email=no,address=no\" />\n<title>Alibaba: Munger Is Not The Thesis</title>\n<style type=\"text/css\">\na,abbr,acronym,address,applet,article,aside,audio,b,big,blockquote,body,canvas,caption,center,cite,code,dd,del,details,dfn,div,dl,dt,\nem,embed,fieldset,figcaption,figure,footer,form,h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6,header,hgroup,html,i,iframe,img,ins,kbd,label,legend,li,mark,menu,nav,\nobject,ol,output,p,pre,q,ruby,s,samp,section,small,span,strike,strong,sub,summary,sup,table,tbody,td,tfoot,th,thead,time,tr,tt,u,ul,var,video{ font:inherit;margin:0;padding:0;vertical-align:baseline;border:0 }\nbody{ font-size:16px; line-height:1.5; color:#999; background:transparent; }\n.wrapper{ overflow:hidden;word-break:break-all;padding:10px; }\nh1,h2{ font-weight:normal; line-height:1.35; margin-bottom:.6em; }\nh3,h4,h5,h6{ line-height:1.35; margin-bottom:1em; }\nh1{ font-size:24px; }\nh2{ font-size:20px; }\nh3{ font-size:18px; }\nh4{ font-size:16px; }\nh5{ font-size:14px; }\nh6{ font-size:12px; }\np,ul,ol,blockquote,dl,table{ margin:1.2em 0; }\nul,ol{ margin-left:2em; }\nul{ list-style:disc; }\nol{ list-style:decimal; }\nli,li p{ margin:10px 0;}\nimg{ max-width:100%;display:block;margin:0 auto 1em; }\nblockquote{ color:#B5B2B1; border-left:3px solid #aaa; padding:1em; }\nstrong,b{font-weight:bold;}\nem,i{font-style:italic;}\ntable{ width:100%;border-collapse:collapse;border-spacing:1px;margin:1em 0;font-size:.9em; }\nth,td{ padding:5px;text-align:left;border:1px solid #aaa; }\nth{ font-weight:bold;background:#5d5d5d; }\n.symbol-link{font-weight:bold;}\n/* header{ border-bottom:1px solid #494756; } */\n.title{ margin:0 0 8px;line-height:1.3;color:#ddd; }\n.meta {color:#5e5c6d;font-size:13px;margin:0 0 .5em; }\na{text-decoration:none; color:#2a4b87;}\n.meta .head { display: inline-block; overflow: hidden}\n.head .h-thumb { width: 30px; height: 30px; margin: 0; padding: 0; border-radius: 50%; float: left;}\n.head .h-content { margin: 0; padding: 0 0 0 9px; float: left;}\n.head .h-name {font-size: 13px; color: #eee; margin: 0;}\n.head .h-time {font-size: 11px; color: #7E829C; margin: 0;line-height: 11px;}\n.small {font-size: 12.5px; display: inline-block; transform: scale(0.9); -webkit-transform: scale(0.9); transform-origin: left; -webkit-transform-origin: left;}\n.smaller {font-size: 12.5px; display: inline-block; transform: scale(0.8); -webkit-transform: scale(0.8); transform-origin: left; -webkit-transform-origin: left;}\n.bt-text {font-size: 12px;margin: 1.5em 0 0 0}\n.bt-text p {margin: 0}\n</style>\n</head>\n<body>\n<div class=\"wrapper\">\n<header>\n<h2 class=\"title\">\nAlibaba: Munger Is Not The Thesis\n</h2>\n\n<h4 class=\"meta\">\n\n\n2022-04-18 13:16 GMT+8&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href=https://seekingalpha.com/article/4501707-alibaba-munger-not-thesis><strong>Seeking Alpha</strong></a>\n\n\n</h4>\n\n</header>\n<article>\n<div>\n<p>SummaryRecently the Daily Journal's 13F revealed that the company trimmed its Alibaba position by 50%.It isn't necessarily the case that former Chairman Charlie Munger sold due to weakening conviction...</p>\n\n<a href=\"https://seekingalpha.com/article/4501707-alibaba-munger-not-thesis\">Web Link</a>\n\n</div>\n\n\n</article>\n</div>\n</body>\n</html>\n","type":0,"thumbnail":"","relate_stocks":{"BABA":"阿里巴巴"},"source_url":"https://seekingalpha.com/article/4501707-alibaba-munger-not-thesis","is_english":true,"share_image_url":"https://static.laohu8.com/e9f99090a1c2ed51c021029395664489","article_id":"1110595663","content_text":"SummaryRecently the Daily Journal's 13F revealed that the company trimmed its Alibaba position by 50%.It isn't necessarily the case that former Chairman Charlie Munger sold due to weakening conviction on BABA stock itself.However, Munger IS out of the picture in one very real way: he is no longer the Daily Journal's Chairman.For this reason, Alibaba can no longer be considered a Munger copy trade.In this article, I develop a fundamentals-based thesis for those who cloned Munger and now aren't sure what to do.Charlie Munger’s Alibaba Group (NYSE:BABA) investment was the talk of the town last week. In its Q1 13F, the Daily Journal Corp (DJCO) revealed that it had sold 50% of its stake in the Chinese tech company, after several quarters of averaging down. It wasn’t immediately clear whether Munger himself made the decision to sell the shares, as he had stepped down just days before the end of the quarter. Tu To was elected to serve as the company’s CFO on March 22. She signed all of the company’s SEC filings from the 22nd onward.There are many reasons why Munger (or somebody else) might have chosen to sell Alibaba. Not all of them necessarily reflect lower conviction in the stock. It’s possible that DJCO converted some of its NYSE shares to Hong Kong shares, or sold to cover a margin loan. Munger hasn’t spoken on the matter publicly yet, nor have any other DJCO officers, so we don’t know.Charlie Munger is thought to have influenced many investors who bought BABA stock in 2021. He began buying the stock around $226, averaging down after that. Many other investors made similar moves. It was shortly after Munger’s first 13F featuring Alibaba that internet communities focused on BABA really started to take off. Some were founded just days after the release.Naturally, Munger’s apparent sale made a big splash. BABA has always been at least partially a Munger clone trade, and it appears that Munger’s conviction in the stock has diminished. Shortly after the 13F was released, investors took to Twitter offering opinions and running polls asking others about what had happened.We may never know. But it doesn’t matter, because BABA ceased being a Munger clone trade long before the 13F came out. When Munger stepped down as Chairman of the Daily Journal, it created ambiguity as to the actual level of influence he will exercise over the firm’s portfolio going forward. The DJCO portfolio is no longer a Munger portfolio–or at least, not 100% a Munger portfolio. For this reason, investors will need a better thesis than “clone Munger because he is good.” In this article, I will attempt to advance such a thesis, based on valuation, competitive position and China's economic growth. First, though, let’s examine why it will not be possible to clone “Munger’s” BABA trades in future quarters.Why Munger Can’t be Cloned AnymoreThere are two reasons why it is impossible to clone Munger’s future BABA trades:Munger is no longer Chairman of the Daily Journal.Some of DJCO’s potential trades are impossible to confirm.The first of these is easy enough to explain. When Munger was Chairman of the Daily Journal, he managed the investment portfolio. Now that he is no longer Chairman, he simply has the duties of a director. Munger could still volunteer to manage the portfolio, but the ultimate decisions would fall on Steven Myhill-Jones, the new CEO, or Tu To, the new CFO. The SEC filings announcing these new hires didn't say who'd manage the portfolio.The second reason why Munger can’t be cloned now is because some of his potential trades wouldn’t have to be disclosed. Munger is well known for not telling investors more than he has to. If he simply converted some of his NYSE ADRs to Hong Kong shares, as some think he did, then he is no longer under the obligation to report all of his holdings. As the SEC website states, you don’t have to disclose foreign listed shares in a 13F, even if your position is massive.What all this means is that cloning Munger’s BABA trades won’t be possible going forward. For those whose BABA position was little more than a Munger copycat, that has got to sting. Fortunately, the fundamentals-based thesis on the stock is not that difficult to comprehend, and can be explained in terms of four basic principles. In the next section I will explain that case in detail.The Bullish Thesis on BABAA strong bullish thesis on BABA can be built on four pillars:China’s economy.BABA’s competitive position.Financial health.Valuation.I’ll look at each of these factors one by one, starting with China’s economyChina’s EconomyDespite the negative headlines you’re seeing these days, China’s economy is very strong. Its GDP growth was 8.1% in 2021. GDP has grown at 7.4% CAGR over 10 years. In 2020, when many countries entered recessions, China’s growth merely decelerated to 2.2%. With all of this growth, you might think that China is pumping itself full of debt. But think again! At 66.8, China’s government debt as a percentage of GDP is lower than that of the U.S., Canada, and the Eurozone. You may have heard stories about China’s “debt problem,” and claims of a 250% debt to GDP ratio. The figure is correct but it includes all debt, government and private. China’s government debt–the kind used to pay for fiscal stimulus–is low as a percentage of GDP. So China is growing very quickly and is fiscally sound enough to stimulate its economy should stimulation become necessary.BABA’s Competitive PositionAs we’ve seen, China has a high growth economy–the kind of economy that a company wants to operate in. That’s a great start but we still need to know about BABA’s competitive position.As an eCommerce company, BABA has few rivals of similar scale. JD.com (JD) technically does more revenue than BABA does, but it has much smaller margins. It could beat Alibaba on scale but probably not on profitability. JD holds and sells inventory. It’s hard to beat a “platform” company like BABA when you have inventory costs. It eats into margins.Pinduoduo (PDD) has been cited as a potential competitor to BABA but there’s just not much evidence of PDD moving beyond agricultural goods. Its group buying model has proven popular in China, but until it moves into other verticals, it’s not competing with huge chunks of Alibaba’s business.Tencent (OTCPK:TCEHY) competes with BABA in one limited way: it has a payment app. The Chinese government forced BABA and Tencent to accept each other’s payment apps last year. So the competition between these two companies for share of payments has indeed increased.BABA’s FinancialsAlibaba’s long-term financials are excellent. The most recent calendar year was a bit of a departure from the long term trend, but that could turn around.According to Seeking Alpha Quant, BABA’s five year CAGR growth rates in revenue, earnings and cash flows are:Revenue: 42%.Net income: 11.3%.Diluted EPS: 9.8%.Free cash flow: 13.66%.These are pretty solid metrics. They were all much higher prior to this year, but the 2021 Chinese tech crackdown caused last year’s numbers to suffer. BABA did take some new costs in 2021, like a $2.8 billion fine and a higher tax rate. However, the fine was non-recurring and the higher tax rate could be “outgrown” with enough quarters of strong revenue gains.At any rate, Alibaba has more than enough financial strength to ride out a few lacklustre quarters. Its balance sheet is one of the strongest in the world, boasting eye-popping metrics like:$276 billion in assets.$100 billion in liabilities.$176 billion in equity.$45 billion in cash.About $20 billion in debt (calculated from $5.09 billion in bonds $14.85 billion in long term bank loans).$105 billion in current assets.$64 billion in current liabilities.A 0.2 debt to equity ratio.A 1.64 current ratio.So we have debt that is very low as a proportion of shareholder equity, and high liquidity. Even BABA’s cash and equivalents outstrip its long term debt! This suggests a very solid balance sheet and a second-to-none ability to ride out a crisis.ValuationValuation has always been one of the pillars on which the BABA bull case has rested. BABA stock is very cheap by almost every multiple you can think of. Some of its most encouraging value metrics include:Adjusted P/E: 11.Price/sales: 1.96.Price/book: 1.67.Price/operating cash flow: 9.37.All of these multiples are comparatively low for the tech sector. For comparison, Amazon (AMZN), the closest comparable U.S. company, has a 46 adjusted P/E ratio.BABA’s GAAP P/E ratio (25) is a little high, but the most recent quarter included large unrealized losses on the company’s stock portfolio. Adjusted earnings and cash from operations are more closely related to the company’s operating performance, and not surprisingly, they were much higher than GAAP earnings. This isn’t just selective choice of non-GAAP measures either: operating cash flow is a GAAP metric and Alibaba reports in accordance with U.S. GAAP.As we’ve seen, Alibaba is cheap, profitable, and has high historical growth. Certainly this stock has many things to recommend it, even after Charlie Munger rode off into the sunset. However, there are still risks and challenges to the bullish thesis on Alibaba stock. These are real risks that investors will need to keep in mind. But on balance, Alibaba looks like a solid value play today. It’s still growing its revenue, its cloud business is inching toward profitability, and its valuation is cheaper than ever before. On the whole, it looks like a sweet deal – with or without Munger on board.","news_type":1},"isVote":1,"likeStatus":false,"favoriteStatus":false,"reportStatus":false,"tweetType":1,"langContent":"EN"},{"id":9081415002,"gmtCreate":1650264851623,"gmtModify":1676534682141,"author":{"id":"3572868008988450","authorId":"3572868008988450","name":"JM85","avatar":"https://static.laohu8.com/default-avatar.jpg","vip":1,"crmLevel":6,"crmLevelSwitch":0},"htmlText":"Its price now looks like more than 50% discount! 😉","listText":"Its price now looks like more than 50% discount! 😉","text":"Its price now looks like more than 50% discount! 😉","images":[],"top":1,"highlighted":1,"essential":1,"paper":1,"likeSize":6,"commentSize":0,"repostSize":0,"link":"https://ttm.financial/post/9081415002","repostId":1110595663,"repostType":4,"repost":{"id":"1110595663","pubTimestamp":1650258996,"share":"https://www.laohu8.com/m/news/1110595663?lang=&edition=full","pubTime":"2022-04-18 13:16","market":"us","language":"en","title":"Alibaba: Munger Is Not The Thesis","url":"https://stock-news.laohu8.com/highlight/detail?id=1110595663","media":"Seeking Alpha","summary":"SummaryRecently the Daily Journal's 13F revealed that the company trimmed its Alibaba position by 50%.It isn't necessarily the case that former Chairman Charlie Munger sold due to weakening conviction","content":"<html><head></head><body><p>Summary</p><ul><li>Recently the Daily Journal&#39;s 13F revealed that the company trimmed its Alibaba position by 50%.</li><li>It isn&#39;t necessarily the case that former Chairman Charlie Munger sold due to weakening conviction on BABA stock itself.</li><li>However, Munger IS out of the picture in one very real way: he is no longer the Daily Journal&#39;s Chairman.</li><li>For this reason, Alibaba can no longer be considered a Munger copy trade.</li><li>In this article, I develop a fundamentals-based thesis for those who cloned Munger and now aren&#39;t sure what to do.</li></ul><p>Charlie Munger’s Alibaba Group (NYSE:BABA) investment was the talk of the town last week. In its Q1 13F, the Daily Journal Corp (DJCO) revealed that it had sold 50% of its stake in the Chinese tech company, after several quarters of averaging down. It wasn’t immediately clear whether Munger himself made the decision to sell the shares, as he had stepped down just days before the end of the quarter. Tu To was elected to serve as the company’s CFO on March 22. She signed all of the company’s SEC filings from the 22nd onward.</p><p>There are many reasons why Munger (or somebody else) might have chosen to sell Alibaba. Not all of them necessarily reflect lower conviction in the stock. It’s possible that DJCO converted some of its NYSE shares to Hong Kong shares, or sold to cover a margin loan. Munger hasn’t spoken on the matter publicly yet, nor have any other DJCO officers, so we don’t know.</p><p>Charlie Munger is thought to have influenced many investors who bought BABA stock in 2021. He began buying the stock around $226, averaging down after that. Many other investors made similar moves. It was shortly after Munger’s first 13F featuring Alibaba that internet communities focused on BABA really started to take off. Some were founded just days after the release.</p><p>Naturally, Munger’s apparent sale made a big splash. BABA has always been at least partially a Munger clone trade, and it appears that Munger’s conviction in the stock has diminished. Shortly after the 13F was released, investors took to Twitter offering opinions and running polls asking others about what had happened.</p><p>We may never know. But it doesn’t matter, because BABA ceased being a Munger clone trade long before the 13F came out. When Munger stepped down as Chairman of the Daily Journal, it created ambiguity as to the actual level of influence he will exercise over the firm’s portfolio going forward. The DJCO portfolio is no longer a Munger portfolio–or at least, not 100% a Munger portfolio. For this reason, investors will need a better thesis than “clone Munger because he is good.” In this article, I will attempt to advance such a thesis, based on valuation, competitive position and China&#39;s economic growth. First, though, let’s examine why it will not be possible to clone “Munger’s” BABA trades in future quarters.</p><p>Why Munger Can’t be Cloned Anymore</p><p>There are two reasons why it is impossible to clone Munger’s future BABA trades:</p><ol><li>Munger is no longer Chairman of the Daily Journal.</li><li>Some of DJCO’s potential trades are impossible to confirm.</li></ol><p>The first of these is easy enough to explain. When Munger was Chairman of the Daily Journal, he managed the investment portfolio. Now that he is no longer Chairman, he simply has the duties of a director. Munger could still volunteer to manage the portfolio, but the ultimate decisions would fall on Steven Myhill-Jones, the new CEO, or Tu To, the new CFO. The SEC filings announcing these new hires didn&#39;t say who&#39;d manage the portfolio.</p><p>The second reason why Munger can’t be cloned now is because some of his potential trades wouldn’t have to be disclosed. Munger is well known for not telling investors more than he has to. If he simply converted some of his NYSE ADRs to Hong Kong shares, as some think he did, then he is no longer under the obligation to report all of his holdings. As the SEC website states, you don’t have to disclose foreign listed shares in a 13F, even if your position is massive.</p><p><img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/5852b29d02869d997a4c8ce719caa59f\" tg-width=\"575\" tg-height=\"191\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\" width=\"100%\" height=\"auto\"/></p><p>What all this means is that cloning Munger’s BABA trades won’t be possible going forward. For those whose BABA position was little more than a Munger copycat, that has got to sting. Fortunately, the fundamentals-based thesis on the stock is not that difficult to comprehend, and can be explained in terms of four basic principles. In the next section I will explain that case in detail.</p><h2>The Bullish Thesis on BABA</h2><p>A strong bullish thesis on BABA can be built on four pillars:</p><ul><li>China’s economy.</li><li>BABA’s competitive position.</li><li>Financial health.</li><li>Valuation.</li></ul><p>I’ll look at each of these factors one by one, starting with China’s economy</p><h2>China’s Economy</h2><p>Despite the negative headlines you’re seeing these days, China’s economy is very strong. Its GDP growth was 8.1% in 2021. GDP has grown at 7.4% CAGR over 10 years. In 2020, when many countries entered recessions, China’s growth merely decelerated to 2.2%. With all of this growth, you might think that China is pumping itself full of debt. But think again! At 66.8, China’s government debt as a percentage of GDP is lower than that of the U.S., Canada, and the Eurozone. You may have heard stories about China’s “debt problem,” and claims of a 250% debt to GDP ratio. The figure is correct but it includes all debt, government and private. China’s government debt–the kind used to pay for fiscal stimulus–is low as a percentage of GDP. So China is growing very quickly and is fiscally sound enough to stimulate its economy should stimulation become necessary.</p><h2>BABA’s Competitive Position</h2><p>As we’ve seen, China has a high growth economy–the kind of economy that a company wants to operate in. That’s a great start but we still need to know about BABA’s competitive position.</p><p>As an eCommerce company, BABA has few rivals of similar scale. JD.com (JD) technically does more revenue than BABA does, but it has much smaller margins. It could beat Alibaba on scale but probably not on profitability. JD holds and sells inventory. It’s hard to beat a “platform” company like BABA when you have inventory costs. It eats into margins.</p><p>Pinduoduo (PDD) has been cited as a potential competitor to BABA but there’s just not much evidence of PDD moving beyond agricultural goods. Its group buying model has proven popular in China, but until it moves into other verticals, it’s not competing with huge chunks of Alibaba’s business.</p><p>Tencent (OTCPK:TCEHY) competes with BABA in one limited way: it has a payment app. The Chinese government forced BABA and Tencent to accept each other’s payment apps last year. So the competition between these two companies for share of payments has indeed increased.</p><h2>BABA’s Financials</h2><p>Alibaba’s long-term financials are excellent. The most recent calendar year was a bit of a departure from the long term trend, but that could turn around.</p><p>According to Seeking Alpha Quant, BABA’s five year CAGR growth rates in revenue, earnings and cash flows are:</p><ul><li>Revenue: 42%.</li><li>Net income: 11.3%.</li><li>Diluted EPS: 9.8%.</li><li>Free cash flow: 13.66%.</li></ul><p>These are pretty solid metrics. They were all much higher prior to this year, but the 2021 Chinese tech crackdown caused last year’s numbers to suffer. BABA did take some new costs in 2021, like a $2.8 billion fine and a higher tax rate. However, the fine was non-recurring and the higher tax rate could be “outgrown” with enough quarters of strong revenue gains.</p><p>At any rate, Alibaba has more than enough financial strength to ride out a few lacklustre quarters. Its balance sheet is one of the strongest in the world, boasting eye-popping metrics like:</p><ul><li>$276 billion in assets.</li><li>$100 billion in liabilities.</li><li>$176 billion in equity.</li><li>$45 billion in cash.</li><li>About $20 billion in debt (calculated from $5.09 billion in bonds $14.85 billion in long term bank loans).</li><li>$105 billion in current assets.</li><li>$64 billion in current liabilities.</li><li>A 0.2 debt to equity ratio.</li><li>A 1.64 current ratio.</li></ul><p>So we have debt that is very low as a proportion of shareholder equity, and high liquidity. Even BABA’s cash and equivalents outstrip its long term debt! This suggests a very solid balance sheet and a second-to-none ability to ride out a crisis.</p><h2>Valuation</h2><p>Valuation has always been one of the pillars on which the BABA bull case has rested. BABA stock is very cheap by almost every multiple you can think of. Some of its most encouraging value metrics include:</p><ul><li>Adjusted P/E: 11.</li><li>Price/sales: 1.96.</li><li>Price/book: 1.67.</li><li>Price/operating cash flow: 9.37.</li></ul><p>All of these multiples are comparatively low for the tech sector. For comparison, Amazon (AMZN), the closest comparable U.S. company, has a 46 adjusted P/E ratio.</p><p>BABA’s GAAP P/E ratio (25) is a little high, but the most recent quarter included large unrealized losses on the company’s stock portfolio. Adjusted earnings and cash from operations are more closely related to the company’s operating performance, and not surprisingly, they were much higher than GAAP earnings. This isn’t just selective choice of non-GAAP measures either: operating cash flow is a GAAP metric and Alibaba reports in accordance with U.S. GAAP.</p><p>As we’ve seen, Alibaba is cheap, profitable, and has high historical growth. Certainly this stock has many things to recommend it, even after Charlie Munger rode off into the sunset. However, there are still risks and challenges to the bullish thesis on Alibaba stock. </p><p>These are real risks that investors will need to keep in mind. But on balance, Alibaba looks like a solid value play today. It’s still growing its revenue, its cloud business is inching toward profitability, and its valuation is cheaper than ever before. On the whole, it looks like a sweet deal – with or without Munger on board.</p></body></html>","collect":0,"html":"<!DOCTYPE html>\n<html>\n<head>\n<meta http-equiv=\"Content-Type\" content=\"text/html; charset=utf-8\" />\n<meta name=\"viewport\" content=\"width=device-width,initial-scale=1.0,minimum-scale=1.0,maximum-scale=1.0,user-scalable=no\"/>\n<meta name=\"format-detection\" content=\"telephone=no,email=no,address=no\" />\n<title>Alibaba: Munger Is Not The Thesis</title>\n<style type=\"text/css\">\na,abbr,acronym,address,applet,article,aside,audio,b,big,blockquote,body,canvas,caption,center,cite,code,dd,del,details,dfn,div,dl,dt,\nem,embed,fieldset,figcaption,figure,footer,form,h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6,header,hgroup,html,i,iframe,img,ins,kbd,label,legend,li,mark,menu,nav,\nobject,ol,output,p,pre,q,ruby,s,samp,section,small,span,strike,strong,sub,summary,sup,table,tbody,td,tfoot,th,thead,time,tr,tt,u,ul,var,video{ font:inherit;margin:0;padding:0;vertical-align:baseline;border:0 }\nbody{ font-size:16px; line-height:1.5; color:#999; background:transparent; }\n.wrapper{ overflow:hidden;word-break:break-all;padding:10px; }\nh1,h2{ font-weight:normal; line-height:1.35; margin-bottom:.6em; }\nh3,h4,h5,h6{ line-height:1.35; margin-bottom:1em; }\nh1{ font-size:24px; }\nh2{ font-size:20px; }\nh3{ font-size:18px; }\nh4{ font-size:16px; }\nh5{ font-size:14px; }\nh6{ font-size:12px; }\np,ul,ol,blockquote,dl,table{ margin:1.2em 0; }\nul,ol{ margin-left:2em; }\nul{ list-style:disc; }\nol{ list-style:decimal; }\nli,li p{ margin:10px 0;}\nimg{ max-width:100%;display:block;margin:0 auto 1em; }\nblockquote{ color:#B5B2B1; border-left:3px solid #aaa; padding:1em; }\nstrong,b{font-weight:bold;}\nem,i{font-style:italic;}\ntable{ width:100%;border-collapse:collapse;border-spacing:1px;margin:1em 0;font-size:.9em; }\nth,td{ padding:5px;text-align:left;border:1px solid #aaa; }\nth{ font-weight:bold;background:#5d5d5d; }\n.symbol-link{font-weight:bold;}\n/* header{ border-bottom:1px solid #494756; } */\n.title{ margin:0 0 8px;line-height:1.3;color:#ddd; }\n.meta {color:#5e5c6d;font-size:13px;margin:0 0 .5em; }\na{text-decoration:none; color:#2a4b87;}\n.meta .head { display: inline-block; overflow: hidden}\n.head .h-thumb { width: 30px; height: 30px; margin: 0; padding: 0; border-radius: 50%; float: left;}\n.head .h-content { margin: 0; padding: 0 0 0 9px; float: left;}\n.head .h-name {font-size: 13px; color: #eee; margin: 0;}\n.head .h-time {font-size: 11px; color: #7E829C; margin: 0;line-height: 11px;}\n.small {font-size: 12.5px; display: inline-block; transform: scale(0.9); -webkit-transform: scale(0.9); transform-origin: left; -webkit-transform-origin: left;}\n.smaller {font-size: 12.5px; display: inline-block; transform: scale(0.8); -webkit-transform: scale(0.8); transform-origin: left; -webkit-transform-origin: left;}\n.bt-text {font-size: 12px;margin: 1.5em 0 0 0}\n.bt-text p {margin: 0}\n</style>\n</head>\n<body>\n<div class=\"wrapper\">\n<header>\n<h2 class=\"title\">\nAlibaba: Munger Is Not The Thesis\n</h2>\n\n<h4 class=\"meta\">\n\n\n2022-04-18 13:16 GMT+8&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href=https://seekingalpha.com/article/4501707-alibaba-munger-not-thesis><strong>Seeking Alpha</strong></a>\n\n\n</h4>\n\n</header>\n<article>\n<div>\n<p>SummaryRecently the Daily Journal's 13F revealed that the company trimmed its Alibaba position by 50%.It isn't necessarily the case that former Chairman Charlie Munger sold due to weakening conviction...</p>\n\n<a href=\"https://seekingalpha.com/article/4501707-alibaba-munger-not-thesis\">Web Link</a>\n\n</div>\n\n\n</article>\n</div>\n</body>\n</html>\n","type":0,"thumbnail":"","relate_stocks":{"BABA":"阿里巴巴"},"source_url":"https://seekingalpha.com/article/4501707-alibaba-munger-not-thesis","is_english":true,"share_image_url":"https://static.laohu8.com/e9f99090a1c2ed51c021029395664489","article_id":"1110595663","content_text":"SummaryRecently the Daily Journal's 13F revealed that the company trimmed its Alibaba position by 50%.It isn't necessarily the case that former Chairman Charlie Munger sold due to weakening conviction on BABA stock itself.However, Munger IS out of the picture in one very real way: he is no longer the Daily Journal's Chairman.For this reason, Alibaba can no longer be considered a Munger copy trade.In this article, I develop a fundamentals-based thesis for those who cloned Munger and now aren't sure what to do.Charlie Munger’s Alibaba Group (NYSE:BABA) investment was the talk of the town last week. In its Q1 13F, the Daily Journal Corp (DJCO) revealed that it had sold 50% of its stake in the Chinese tech company, after several quarters of averaging down. It wasn’t immediately clear whether Munger himself made the decision to sell the shares, as he had stepped down just days before the end of the quarter. Tu To was elected to serve as the company’s CFO on March 22. She signed all of the company’s SEC filings from the 22nd onward.There are many reasons why Munger (or somebody else) might have chosen to sell Alibaba. Not all of them necessarily reflect lower conviction in the stock. It’s possible that DJCO converted some of its NYSE shares to Hong Kong shares, or sold to cover a margin loan. Munger hasn’t spoken on the matter publicly yet, nor have any other DJCO officers, so we don’t know.Charlie Munger is thought to have influenced many investors who bought BABA stock in 2021. He began buying the stock around $226, averaging down after that. Many other investors made similar moves. It was shortly after Munger’s first 13F featuring Alibaba that internet communities focused on BABA really started to take off. Some were founded just days after the release.Naturally, Munger’s apparent sale made a big splash. BABA has always been at least partially a Munger clone trade, and it appears that Munger’s conviction in the stock has diminished. Shortly after the 13F was released, investors took to Twitter offering opinions and running polls asking others about what had happened.We may never know. But it doesn’t matter, because BABA ceased being a Munger clone trade long before the 13F came out. When Munger stepped down as Chairman of the Daily Journal, it created ambiguity as to the actual level of influence he will exercise over the firm’s portfolio going forward. The DJCO portfolio is no longer a Munger portfolio–or at least, not 100% a Munger portfolio. For this reason, investors will need a better thesis than “clone Munger because he is good.” In this article, I will attempt to advance such a thesis, based on valuation, competitive position and China's economic growth. First, though, let’s examine why it will not be possible to clone “Munger’s” BABA trades in future quarters.Why Munger Can’t be Cloned AnymoreThere are two reasons why it is impossible to clone Munger’s future BABA trades:Munger is no longer Chairman of the Daily Journal.Some of DJCO’s potential trades are impossible to confirm.The first of these is easy enough to explain. When Munger was Chairman of the Daily Journal, he managed the investment portfolio. Now that he is no longer Chairman, he simply has the duties of a director. Munger could still volunteer to manage the portfolio, but the ultimate decisions would fall on Steven Myhill-Jones, the new CEO, or Tu To, the new CFO. The SEC filings announcing these new hires didn't say who'd manage the portfolio.The second reason why Munger can’t be cloned now is because some of his potential trades wouldn’t have to be disclosed. Munger is well known for not telling investors more than he has to. If he simply converted some of his NYSE ADRs to Hong Kong shares, as some think he did, then he is no longer under the obligation to report all of his holdings. As the SEC website states, you don’t have to disclose foreign listed shares in a 13F, even if your position is massive.What all this means is that cloning Munger’s BABA trades won’t be possible going forward. For those whose BABA position was little more than a Munger copycat, that has got to sting. Fortunately, the fundamentals-based thesis on the stock is not that difficult to comprehend, and can be explained in terms of four basic principles. In the next section I will explain that case in detail.The Bullish Thesis on BABAA strong bullish thesis on BABA can be built on four pillars:China’s economy.BABA’s competitive position.Financial health.Valuation.I’ll look at each of these factors one by one, starting with China’s economyChina’s EconomyDespite the negative headlines you’re seeing these days, China’s economy is very strong. Its GDP growth was 8.1% in 2021. GDP has grown at 7.4% CAGR over 10 years. In 2020, when many countries entered recessions, China’s growth merely decelerated to 2.2%. With all of this growth, you might think that China is pumping itself full of debt. But think again! At 66.8, China’s government debt as a percentage of GDP is lower than that of the U.S., Canada, and the Eurozone. You may have heard stories about China’s “debt problem,” and claims of a 250% debt to GDP ratio. The figure is correct but it includes all debt, government and private. China’s government debt–the kind used to pay for fiscal stimulus–is low as a percentage of GDP. So China is growing very quickly and is fiscally sound enough to stimulate its economy should stimulation become necessary.BABA’s Competitive PositionAs we’ve seen, China has a high growth economy–the kind of economy that a company wants to operate in. That’s a great start but we still need to know about BABA’s competitive position.As an eCommerce company, BABA has few rivals of similar scale. JD.com (JD) technically does more revenue than BABA does, but it has much smaller margins. It could beat Alibaba on scale but probably not on profitability. JD holds and sells inventory. It’s hard to beat a “platform” company like BABA when you have inventory costs. It eats into margins.Pinduoduo (PDD) has been cited as a potential competitor to BABA but there’s just not much evidence of PDD moving beyond agricultural goods. Its group buying model has proven popular in China, but until it moves into other verticals, it’s not competing with huge chunks of Alibaba’s business.Tencent (OTCPK:TCEHY) competes with BABA in one limited way: it has a payment app. The Chinese government forced BABA and Tencent to accept each other’s payment apps last year. So the competition between these two companies for share of payments has indeed increased.BABA’s FinancialsAlibaba’s long-term financials are excellent. The most recent calendar year was a bit of a departure from the long term trend, but that could turn around.According to Seeking Alpha Quant, BABA’s five year CAGR growth rates in revenue, earnings and cash flows are:Revenue: 42%.Net income: 11.3%.Diluted EPS: 9.8%.Free cash flow: 13.66%.These are pretty solid metrics. They were all much higher prior to this year, but the 2021 Chinese tech crackdown caused last year’s numbers to suffer. BABA did take some new costs in 2021, like a $2.8 billion fine and a higher tax rate. However, the fine was non-recurring and the higher tax rate could be “outgrown” with enough quarters of strong revenue gains.At any rate, Alibaba has more than enough financial strength to ride out a few lacklustre quarters. Its balance sheet is one of the strongest in the world, boasting eye-popping metrics like:$276 billion in assets.$100 billion in liabilities.$176 billion in equity.$45 billion in cash.About $20 billion in debt (calculated from $5.09 billion in bonds $14.85 billion in long term bank loans).$105 billion in current assets.$64 billion in current liabilities.A 0.2 debt to equity ratio.A 1.64 current ratio.So we have debt that is very low as a proportion of shareholder equity, and high liquidity. Even BABA’s cash and equivalents outstrip its long term debt! This suggests a very solid balance sheet and a second-to-none ability to ride out a crisis.ValuationValuation has always been one of the pillars on which the BABA bull case has rested. BABA stock is very cheap by almost every multiple you can think of. Some of its most encouraging value metrics include:Adjusted P/E: 11.Price/sales: 1.96.Price/book: 1.67.Price/operating cash flow: 9.37.All of these multiples are comparatively low for the tech sector. For comparison, Amazon (AMZN), the closest comparable U.S. company, has a 46 adjusted P/E ratio.BABA’s GAAP P/E ratio (25) is a little high, but the most recent quarter included large unrealized losses on the company’s stock portfolio. Adjusted earnings and cash from operations are more closely related to the company’s operating performance, and not surprisingly, they were much higher than GAAP earnings. This isn’t just selective choice of non-GAAP measures either: operating cash flow is a GAAP metric and Alibaba reports in accordance with U.S. GAAP.As we’ve seen, Alibaba is cheap, profitable, and has high historical growth. Certainly this stock has many things to recommend it, even after Charlie Munger rode off into the sunset. However, there are still risks and challenges to the bullish thesis on Alibaba stock. These are real risks that investors will need to keep in mind. But on balance, Alibaba looks like a solid value play today. It’s still growing its revenue, its cloud business is inching toward profitability, and its valuation is cheaper than ever before. On the whole, it looks like a sweet deal – with or without Munger on board.","news_type":1},"isVote":1,"likeStatus":false,"favoriteStatus":false,"reportStatus":false,"tweetType":1,"langContent":"EN"},{"id":9081412533,"gmtCreate":1650264730070,"gmtModify":1676534682123,"author":{"id":"3581934394230212","authorId":"3581934394230212","name":"Tiyenger","avatar":"https://static.tigerbbs.com/19f86e7f2a2c2bdd786b78dfd45bd48b","vip":1,"hat":"https://static.tigerbbs.com/f84859c65fc2d7681e28f6b8e9b0535a","crmLevel":5,"crmLevelSwitch":0},"htmlText":"HODL","listText":"HODL","text":"HODL","images":[],"top":1,"highlighted":1,"essential":1,"paper":1,"likeSize":2,"commentSize":0,"repostSize":0,"link":"https://ttm.financial/post/9081412533","repostId":1110595663,"repostType":2,"repost":{"id":"1110595663","pubTimestamp":1650258996,"share":"https://www.laohu8.com/m/news/1110595663?lang=&edition=full","pubTime":"2022-04-18 13:16","market":"us","language":"en","title":"Alibaba: Munger Is Not The Thesis","url":"https://stock-news.laohu8.com/highlight/detail?id=1110595663","media":"Seeking Alpha","summary":"SummaryRecently the Daily Journal's 13F revealed that the company trimmed its Alibaba position by 50%.It isn't necessarily the case that former Chairman Charlie Munger sold due to weakening conviction","content":"<html><head></head><body><p>Summary</p><ul><li>Recently the Daily Journal&#39;s 13F revealed that the company trimmed its Alibaba position by 50%.</li><li>It isn&#39;t necessarily the case that former Chairman Charlie Munger sold due to weakening conviction on BABA stock itself.</li><li>However, Munger IS out of the picture in one very real way: he is no longer the Daily Journal&#39;s Chairman.</li><li>For this reason, Alibaba can no longer be considered a Munger copy trade.</li><li>In this article, I develop a fundamentals-based thesis for those who cloned Munger and now aren&#39;t sure what to do.</li></ul><p>Charlie Munger’s Alibaba Group (NYSE:BABA) investment was the talk of the town last week. In its Q1 13F, the Daily Journal Corp (DJCO) revealed that it had sold 50% of its stake in the Chinese tech company, after several quarters of averaging down. It wasn’t immediately clear whether Munger himself made the decision to sell the shares, as he had stepped down just days before the end of the quarter. Tu To was elected to serve as the company’s CFO on March 22. She signed all of the company’s SEC filings from the 22nd onward.</p><p>There are many reasons why Munger (or somebody else) might have chosen to sell Alibaba. Not all of them necessarily reflect lower conviction in the stock. It’s possible that DJCO converted some of its NYSE shares to Hong Kong shares, or sold to cover a margin loan. Munger hasn’t spoken on the matter publicly yet, nor have any other DJCO officers, so we don’t know.</p><p>Charlie Munger is thought to have influenced many investors who bought BABA stock in 2021. He began buying the stock around $226, averaging down after that. Many other investors made similar moves. It was shortly after Munger’s first 13F featuring Alibaba that internet communities focused on BABA really started to take off. Some were founded just days after the release.</p><p>Naturally, Munger’s apparent sale made a big splash. BABA has always been at least partially a Munger clone trade, and it appears that Munger’s conviction in the stock has diminished. Shortly after the 13F was released, investors took to Twitter offering opinions and running polls asking others about what had happened.</p><p>We may never know. But it doesn’t matter, because BABA ceased being a Munger clone trade long before the 13F came out. When Munger stepped down as Chairman of the Daily Journal, it created ambiguity as to the actual level of influence he will exercise over the firm’s portfolio going forward. The DJCO portfolio is no longer a Munger portfolio–or at least, not 100% a Munger portfolio. For this reason, investors will need a better thesis than “clone Munger because he is good.” In this article, I will attempt to advance such a thesis, based on valuation, competitive position and China&#39;s economic growth. First, though, let’s examine why it will not be possible to clone “Munger’s” BABA trades in future quarters.</p><p>Why Munger Can’t be Cloned Anymore</p><p>There are two reasons why it is impossible to clone Munger’s future BABA trades:</p><ol><li>Munger is no longer Chairman of the Daily Journal.</li><li>Some of DJCO’s potential trades are impossible to confirm.</li></ol><p>The first of these is easy enough to explain. When Munger was Chairman of the Daily Journal, he managed the investment portfolio. Now that he is no longer Chairman, he simply has the duties of a director. Munger could still volunteer to manage the portfolio, but the ultimate decisions would fall on Steven Myhill-Jones, the new CEO, or Tu To, the new CFO. The SEC filings announcing these new hires didn&#39;t say who&#39;d manage the portfolio.</p><p>The second reason why Munger can’t be cloned now is because some of his potential trades wouldn’t have to be disclosed. Munger is well known for not telling investors more than he has to. If he simply converted some of his NYSE ADRs to Hong Kong shares, as some think he did, then he is no longer under the obligation to report all of his holdings. As the SEC website states, you don’t have to disclose foreign listed shares in a 13F, even if your position is massive.</p><p><img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/5852b29d02869d997a4c8ce719caa59f\" tg-width=\"575\" tg-height=\"191\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\" width=\"100%\" height=\"auto\"/></p><p>What all this means is that cloning Munger’s BABA trades won’t be possible going forward. For those whose BABA position was little more than a Munger copycat, that has got to sting. Fortunately, the fundamentals-based thesis on the stock is not that difficult to comprehend, and can be explained in terms of four basic principles. In the next section I will explain that case in detail.</p><h2>The Bullish Thesis on BABA</h2><p>A strong bullish thesis on BABA can be built on four pillars:</p><ul><li>China’s economy.</li><li>BABA’s competitive position.</li><li>Financial health.</li><li>Valuation.</li></ul><p>I’ll look at each of these factors one by one, starting with China’s economy</p><h2>China’s Economy</h2><p>Despite the negative headlines you’re seeing these days, China’s economy is very strong. Its GDP growth was 8.1% in 2021. GDP has grown at 7.4% CAGR over 10 years. In 2020, when many countries entered recessions, China’s growth merely decelerated to 2.2%. With all of this growth, you might think that China is pumping itself full of debt. But think again! At 66.8, China’s government debt as a percentage of GDP is lower than that of the U.S., Canada, and the Eurozone. You may have heard stories about China’s “debt problem,” and claims of a 250% debt to GDP ratio. The figure is correct but it includes all debt, government and private. China’s government debt–the kind used to pay for fiscal stimulus–is low as a percentage of GDP. So China is growing very quickly and is fiscally sound enough to stimulate its economy should stimulation become necessary.</p><h2>BABA’s Competitive Position</h2><p>As we’ve seen, China has a high growth economy–the kind of economy that a company wants to operate in. That’s a great start but we still need to know about BABA’s competitive position.</p><p>As an eCommerce company, BABA has few rivals of similar scale. JD.com (JD) technically does more revenue than BABA does, but it has much smaller margins. It could beat Alibaba on scale but probably not on profitability. JD holds and sells inventory. It’s hard to beat a “platform” company like BABA when you have inventory costs. It eats into margins.</p><p>Pinduoduo (PDD) has been cited as a potential competitor to BABA but there’s just not much evidence of PDD moving beyond agricultural goods. Its group buying model has proven popular in China, but until it moves into other verticals, it’s not competing with huge chunks of Alibaba’s business.</p><p>Tencent (OTCPK:TCEHY) competes with BABA in one limited way: it has a payment app. The Chinese government forced BABA and Tencent to accept each other’s payment apps last year. So the competition between these two companies for share of payments has indeed increased.</p><h2>BABA’s Financials</h2><p>Alibaba’s long-term financials are excellent. The most recent calendar year was a bit of a departure from the long term trend, but that could turn around.</p><p>According to Seeking Alpha Quant, BABA’s five year CAGR growth rates in revenue, earnings and cash flows are:</p><ul><li>Revenue: 42%.</li><li>Net income: 11.3%.</li><li>Diluted EPS: 9.8%.</li><li>Free cash flow: 13.66%.</li></ul><p>These are pretty solid metrics. They were all much higher prior to this year, but the 2021 Chinese tech crackdown caused last year’s numbers to suffer. BABA did take some new costs in 2021, like a $2.8 billion fine and a higher tax rate. However, the fine was non-recurring and the higher tax rate could be “outgrown” with enough quarters of strong revenue gains.</p><p>At any rate, Alibaba has more than enough financial strength to ride out a few lacklustre quarters. Its balance sheet is one of the strongest in the world, boasting eye-popping metrics like:</p><ul><li>$276 billion in assets.</li><li>$100 billion in liabilities.</li><li>$176 billion in equity.</li><li>$45 billion in cash.</li><li>About $20 billion in debt (calculated from $5.09 billion in bonds $14.85 billion in long term bank loans).</li><li>$105 billion in current assets.</li><li>$64 billion in current liabilities.</li><li>A 0.2 debt to equity ratio.</li><li>A 1.64 current ratio.</li></ul><p>So we have debt that is very low as a proportion of shareholder equity, and high liquidity. Even BABA’s cash and equivalents outstrip its long term debt! This suggests a very solid balance sheet and a second-to-none ability to ride out a crisis.</p><h2>Valuation</h2><p>Valuation has always been one of the pillars on which the BABA bull case has rested. BABA stock is very cheap by almost every multiple you can think of. Some of its most encouraging value metrics include:</p><ul><li>Adjusted P/E: 11.</li><li>Price/sales: 1.96.</li><li>Price/book: 1.67.</li><li>Price/operating cash flow: 9.37.</li></ul><p>All of these multiples are comparatively low for the tech sector. For comparison, Amazon (AMZN), the closest comparable U.S. company, has a 46 adjusted P/E ratio.</p><p>BABA’s GAAP P/E ratio (25) is a little high, but the most recent quarter included large unrealized losses on the company’s stock portfolio. Adjusted earnings and cash from operations are more closely related to the company’s operating performance, and not surprisingly, they were much higher than GAAP earnings. This isn’t just selective choice of non-GAAP measures either: operating cash flow is a GAAP metric and Alibaba reports in accordance with U.S. GAAP.</p><p>As we’ve seen, Alibaba is cheap, profitable, and has high historical growth. Certainly this stock has many things to recommend it, even after Charlie Munger rode off into the sunset. However, there are still risks and challenges to the bullish thesis on Alibaba stock. </p><p>These are real risks that investors will need to keep in mind. But on balance, Alibaba looks like a solid value play today. It’s still growing its revenue, its cloud business is inching toward profitability, and its valuation is cheaper than ever before. On the whole, it looks like a sweet deal – with or without Munger on board.</p></body></html>","collect":0,"html":"<!DOCTYPE html>\n<html>\n<head>\n<meta http-equiv=\"Content-Type\" content=\"text/html; charset=utf-8\" />\n<meta name=\"viewport\" content=\"width=device-width,initial-scale=1.0,minimum-scale=1.0,maximum-scale=1.0,user-scalable=no\"/>\n<meta name=\"format-detection\" content=\"telephone=no,email=no,address=no\" />\n<title>Alibaba: Munger Is Not The Thesis</title>\n<style type=\"text/css\">\na,abbr,acronym,address,applet,article,aside,audio,b,big,blockquote,body,canvas,caption,center,cite,code,dd,del,details,dfn,div,dl,dt,\nem,embed,fieldset,figcaption,figure,footer,form,h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6,header,hgroup,html,i,iframe,img,ins,kbd,label,legend,li,mark,menu,nav,\nobject,ol,output,p,pre,q,ruby,s,samp,section,small,span,strike,strong,sub,summary,sup,table,tbody,td,tfoot,th,thead,time,tr,tt,u,ul,var,video{ font:inherit;margin:0;padding:0;vertical-align:baseline;border:0 }\nbody{ font-size:16px; line-height:1.5; color:#999; background:transparent; }\n.wrapper{ overflow:hidden;word-break:break-all;padding:10px; }\nh1,h2{ font-weight:normal; line-height:1.35; margin-bottom:.6em; }\nh3,h4,h5,h6{ line-height:1.35; margin-bottom:1em; }\nh1{ font-size:24px; }\nh2{ font-size:20px; }\nh3{ font-size:18px; }\nh4{ font-size:16px; }\nh5{ font-size:14px; }\nh6{ font-size:12px; }\np,ul,ol,blockquote,dl,table{ margin:1.2em 0; }\nul,ol{ margin-left:2em; }\nul{ list-style:disc; }\nol{ list-style:decimal; }\nli,li p{ margin:10px 0;}\nimg{ max-width:100%;display:block;margin:0 auto 1em; }\nblockquote{ color:#B5B2B1; border-left:3px solid #aaa; padding:1em; }\nstrong,b{font-weight:bold;}\nem,i{font-style:italic;}\ntable{ width:100%;border-collapse:collapse;border-spacing:1px;margin:1em 0;font-size:.9em; }\nth,td{ padding:5px;text-align:left;border:1px solid #aaa; }\nth{ font-weight:bold;background:#5d5d5d; }\n.symbol-link{font-weight:bold;}\n/* header{ border-bottom:1px solid #494756; } */\n.title{ margin:0 0 8px;line-height:1.3;color:#ddd; }\n.meta {color:#5e5c6d;font-size:13px;margin:0 0 .5em; }\na{text-decoration:none; color:#2a4b87;}\n.meta .head { display: inline-block; overflow: hidden}\n.head .h-thumb { width: 30px; height: 30px; margin: 0; padding: 0; border-radius: 50%; float: left;}\n.head .h-content { margin: 0; padding: 0 0 0 9px; float: left;}\n.head .h-name {font-size: 13px; color: #eee; margin: 0;}\n.head .h-time {font-size: 11px; color: #7E829C; margin: 0;line-height: 11px;}\n.small {font-size: 12.5px; display: inline-block; transform: scale(0.9); -webkit-transform: scale(0.9); transform-origin: left; -webkit-transform-origin: left;}\n.smaller {font-size: 12.5px; display: inline-block; transform: scale(0.8); -webkit-transform: scale(0.8); transform-origin: left; -webkit-transform-origin: left;}\n.bt-text {font-size: 12px;margin: 1.5em 0 0 0}\n.bt-text p {margin: 0}\n</style>\n</head>\n<body>\n<div class=\"wrapper\">\n<header>\n<h2 class=\"title\">\nAlibaba: Munger Is Not The Thesis\n</h2>\n\n<h4 class=\"meta\">\n\n\n2022-04-18 13:16 GMT+8&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href=https://seekingalpha.com/article/4501707-alibaba-munger-not-thesis><strong>Seeking Alpha</strong></a>\n\n\n</h4>\n\n</header>\n<article>\n<div>\n<p>SummaryRecently the Daily Journal's 13F revealed that the company trimmed its Alibaba position by 50%.It isn't necessarily the case that former Chairman Charlie Munger sold due to weakening conviction...</p>\n\n<a href=\"https://seekingalpha.com/article/4501707-alibaba-munger-not-thesis\">Web Link</a>\n\n</div>\n\n\n</article>\n</div>\n</body>\n</html>\n","type":0,"thumbnail":"","relate_stocks":{"BABA":"阿里巴巴"},"source_url":"https://seekingalpha.com/article/4501707-alibaba-munger-not-thesis","is_english":true,"share_image_url":"https://static.laohu8.com/e9f99090a1c2ed51c021029395664489","article_id":"1110595663","content_text":"SummaryRecently the Daily Journal's 13F revealed that the company trimmed its Alibaba position by 50%.It isn't necessarily the case that former Chairman Charlie Munger sold due to weakening conviction on BABA stock itself.However, Munger IS out of the picture in one very real way: he is no longer the Daily Journal's Chairman.For this reason, Alibaba can no longer be considered a Munger copy trade.In this article, I develop a fundamentals-based thesis for those who cloned Munger and now aren't sure what to do.Charlie Munger’s Alibaba Group (NYSE:BABA) investment was the talk of the town last week. In its Q1 13F, the Daily Journal Corp (DJCO) revealed that it had sold 50% of its stake in the Chinese tech company, after several quarters of averaging down. It wasn’t immediately clear whether Munger himself made the decision to sell the shares, as he had stepped down just days before the end of the quarter. Tu To was elected to serve as the company’s CFO on March 22. She signed all of the company’s SEC filings from the 22nd onward.There are many reasons why Munger (or somebody else) might have chosen to sell Alibaba. Not all of them necessarily reflect lower conviction in the stock. It’s possible that DJCO converted some of its NYSE shares to Hong Kong shares, or sold to cover a margin loan. Munger hasn’t spoken on the matter publicly yet, nor have any other DJCO officers, so we don’t know.Charlie Munger is thought to have influenced many investors who bought BABA stock in 2021. He began buying the stock around $226, averaging down after that. Many other investors made similar moves. It was shortly after Munger’s first 13F featuring Alibaba that internet communities focused on BABA really started to take off. Some were founded just days after the release.Naturally, Munger’s apparent sale made a big splash. BABA has always been at least partially a Munger clone trade, and it appears that Munger’s conviction in the stock has diminished. Shortly after the 13F was released, investors took to Twitter offering opinions and running polls asking others about what had happened.We may never know. But it doesn’t matter, because BABA ceased being a Munger clone trade long before the 13F came out. When Munger stepped down as Chairman of the Daily Journal, it created ambiguity as to the actual level of influence he will exercise over the firm’s portfolio going forward. The DJCO portfolio is no longer a Munger portfolio–or at least, not 100% a Munger portfolio. For this reason, investors will need a better thesis than “clone Munger because he is good.” In this article, I will attempt to advance such a thesis, based on valuation, competitive position and China's economic growth. First, though, let’s examine why it will not be possible to clone “Munger’s” BABA trades in future quarters.Why Munger Can’t be Cloned AnymoreThere are two reasons why it is impossible to clone Munger’s future BABA trades:Munger is no longer Chairman of the Daily Journal.Some of DJCO’s potential trades are impossible to confirm.The first of these is easy enough to explain. When Munger was Chairman of the Daily Journal, he managed the investment portfolio. Now that he is no longer Chairman, he simply has the duties of a director. Munger could still volunteer to manage the portfolio, but the ultimate decisions would fall on Steven Myhill-Jones, the new CEO, or Tu To, the new CFO. The SEC filings announcing these new hires didn't say who'd manage the portfolio.The second reason why Munger can’t be cloned now is because some of his potential trades wouldn’t have to be disclosed. Munger is well known for not telling investors more than he has to. If he simply converted some of his NYSE ADRs to Hong Kong shares, as some think he did, then he is no longer under the obligation to report all of his holdings. As the SEC website states, you don’t have to disclose foreign listed shares in a 13F, even if your position is massive.What all this means is that cloning Munger’s BABA trades won’t be possible going forward. For those whose BABA position was little more than a Munger copycat, that has got to sting. Fortunately, the fundamentals-based thesis on the stock is not that difficult to comprehend, and can be explained in terms of four basic principles. In the next section I will explain that case in detail.The Bullish Thesis on BABAA strong bullish thesis on BABA can be built on four pillars:China’s economy.BABA’s competitive position.Financial health.Valuation.I’ll look at each of these factors one by one, starting with China’s economyChina’s EconomyDespite the negative headlines you’re seeing these days, China’s economy is very strong. Its GDP growth was 8.1% in 2021. GDP has grown at 7.4% CAGR over 10 years. In 2020, when many countries entered recessions, China’s growth merely decelerated to 2.2%. With all of this growth, you might think that China is pumping itself full of debt. But think again! At 66.8, China’s government debt as a percentage of GDP is lower than that of the U.S., Canada, and the Eurozone. You may have heard stories about China’s “debt problem,” and claims of a 250% debt to GDP ratio. The figure is correct but it includes all debt, government and private. China’s government debt–the kind used to pay for fiscal stimulus–is low as a percentage of GDP. So China is growing very quickly and is fiscally sound enough to stimulate its economy should stimulation become necessary.BABA’s Competitive PositionAs we’ve seen, China has a high growth economy–the kind of economy that a company wants to operate in. That’s a great start but we still need to know about BABA’s competitive position.As an eCommerce company, BABA has few rivals of similar scale. JD.com (JD) technically does more revenue than BABA does, but it has much smaller margins. It could beat Alibaba on scale but probably not on profitability. JD holds and sells inventory. It’s hard to beat a “platform” company like BABA when you have inventory costs. It eats into margins.Pinduoduo (PDD) has been cited as a potential competitor to BABA but there’s just not much evidence of PDD moving beyond agricultural goods. Its group buying model has proven popular in China, but until it moves into other verticals, it’s not competing with huge chunks of Alibaba’s business.Tencent (OTCPK:TCEHY) competes with BABA in one limited way: it has a payment app. The Chinese government forced BABA and Tencent to accept each other’s payment apps last year. So the competition between these two companies for share of payments has indeed increased.BABA’s FinancialsAlibaba’s long-term financials are excellent. The most recent calendar year was a bit of a departure from the long term trend, but that could turn around.According to Seeking Alpha Quant, BABA’s five year CAGR growth rates in revenue, earnings and cash flows are:Revenue: 42%.Net income: 11.3%.Diluted EPS: 9.8%.Free cash flow: 13.66%.These are pretty solid metrics. They were all much higher prior to this year, but the 2021 Chinese tech crackdown caused last year’s numbers to suffer. BABA did take some new costs in 2021, like a $2.8 billion fine and a higher tax rate. However, the fine was non-recurring and the higher tax rate could be “outgrown” with enough quarters of strong revenue gains.At any rate, Alibaba has more than enough financial strength to ride out a few lacklustre quarters. Its balance sheet is one of the strongest in the world, boasting eye-popping metrics like:$276 billion in assets.$100 billion in liabilities.$176 billion in equity.$45 billion in cash.About $20 billion in debt (calculated from $5.09 billion in bonds $14.85 billion in long term bank loans).$105 billion in current assets.$64 billion in current liabilities.A 0.2 debt to equity ratio.A 1.64 current ratio.So we have debt that is very low as a proportion of shareholder equity, and high liquidity. Even BABA’s cash and equivalents outstrip its long term debt! This suggests a very solid balance sheet and a second-to-none ability to ride out a crisis.ValuationValuation has always been one of the pillars on which the BABA bull case has rested. BABA stock is very cheap by almost every multiple you can think of. Some of its most encouraging value metrics include:Adjusted P/E: 11.Price/sales: 1.96.Price/book: 1.67.Price/operating cash flow: 9.37.All of these multiples are comparatively low for the tech sector. For comparison, Amazon (AMZN), the closest comparable U.S. company, has a 46 adjusted P/E ratio.BABA’s GAAP P/E ratio (25) is a little high, but the most recent quarter included large unrealized losses on the company’s stock portfolio. Adjusted earnings and cash from operations are more closely related to the company’s operating performance, and not surprisingly, they were much higher than GAAP earnings. This isn’t just selective choice of non-GAAP measures either: operating cash flow is a GAAP metric and Alibaba reports in accordance with U.S. GAAP.As we’ve seen, Alibaba is cheap, profitable, and has high historical growth. Certainly this stock has many things to recommend it, even after Charlie Munger rode off into the sunset. However, there are still risks and challenges to the bullish thesis on Alibaba stock. These are real risks that investors will need to keep in mind. But on balance, Alibaba looks like a solid value play today. It’s still growing its revenue, its cloud business is inching toward profitability, and its valuation is cheaper than ever before. On the whole, it looks like a sweet deal – with or without Munger on board.","news_type":1},"isVote":1,"likeStatus":false,"favoriteStatus":false,"reportStatus":false,"tweetType":1,"langContent":"EN"},{"id":9081416867,"gmtCreate":1650264470153,"gmtModify":1676534682100,"author":{"id":"3572356875693179","authorId":"3572356875693179","name":"boomer9595","avatar":"https://static.tigerbbs.com/a1c28a016b3392fde65eec18f24c3012","vip":1,"hat":"https://static.tigerbbs.com/f84d87792f02cf78e80ee34979fd31e5","crmLevel":6,"crmLevelSwitch":1},"htmlText":"Hope it still a good stock to own","listText":"Hope it still a good stock to own","text":"Hope it still a good stock to own","images":[],"top":1,"highlighted":1,"essential":1,"paper":1,"likeSize":3,"commentSize":0,"repostSize":0,"link":"https://ttm.financial/post/9081416867","repostId":1110595663,"repostType":4,"repost":{"id":"1110595663","pubTimestamp":1650258996,"share":"https://www.laohu8.com/m/news/1110595663?lang=&edition=full","pubTime":"2022-04-18 13:16","market":"us","language":"en","title":"Alibaba: Munger Is Not The Thesis","url":"https://stock-news.laohu8.com/highlight/detail?id=1110595663","media":"Seeking Alpha","summary":"SummaryRecently the Daily Journal's 13F revealed that the company trimmed its Alibaba position by 50%.It isn't necessarily the case that former Chairman Charlie Munger sold due to weakening conviction","content":"<html><head></head><body><p>Summary</p><ul><li>Recently the Daily Journal&#39;s 13F revealed that the company trimmed its Alibaba position by 50%.</li><li>It isn&#39;t necessarily the case that former Chairman Charlie Munger sold due to weakening conviction on BABA stock itself.</li><li>However, Munger IS out of the picture in one very real way: he is no longer the Daily Journal&#39;s Chairman.</li><li>For this reason, Alibaba can no longer be considered a Munger copy trade.</li><li>In this article, I develop a fundamentals-based thesis for those who cloned Munger and now aren&#39;t sure what to do.</li></ul><p>Charlie Munger’s Alibaba Group (NYSE:BABA) investment was the talk of the town last week. In its Q1 13F, the Daily Journal Corp (DJCO) revealed that it had sold 50% of its stake in the Chinese tech company, after several quarters of averaging down. It wasn’t immediately clear whether Munger himself made the decision to sell the shares, as he had stepped down just days before the end of the quarter. Tu To was elected to serve as the company’s CFO on March 22. She signed all of the company’s SEC filings from the 22nd onward.</p><p>There are many reasons why Munger (or somebody else) might have chosen to sell Alibaba. Not all of them necessarily reflect lower conviction in the stock. It’s possible that DJCO converted some of its NYSE shares to Hong Kong shares, or sold to cover a margin loan. Munger hasn’t spoken on the matter publicly yet, nor have any other DJCO officers, so we don’t know.</p><p>Charlie Munger is thought to have influenced many investors who bought BABA stock in 2021. He began buying the stock around $226, averaging down after that. Many other investors made similar moves. It was shortly after Munger’s first 13F featuring Alibaba that internet communities focused on BABA really started to take off. Some were founded just days after the release.</p><p>Naturally, Munger’s apparent sale made a big splash. BABA has always been at least partially a Munger clone trade, and it appears that Munger’s conviction in the stock has diminished. Shortly after the 13F was released, investors took to Twitter offering opinions and running polls asking others about what had happened.</p><p>We may never know. But it doesn’t matter, because BABA ceased being a Munger clone trade long before the 13F came out. When Munger stepped down as Chairman of the Daily Journal, it created ambiguity as to the actual level of influence he will exercise over the firm’s portfolio going forward. The DJCO portfolio is no longer a Munger portfolio–or at least, not 100% a Munger portfolio. For this reason, investors will need a better thesis than “clone Munger because he is good.” In this article, I will attempt to advance such a thesis, based on valuation, competitive position and China&#39;s economic growth. First, though, let’s examine why it will not be possible to clone “Munger’s” BABA trades in future quarters.</p><p>Why Munger Can’t be Cloned Anymore</p><p>There are two reasons why it is impossible to clone Munger’s future BABA trades:</p><ol><li>Munger is no longer Chairman of the Daily Journal.</li><li>Some of DJCO’s potential trades are impossible to confirm.</li></ol><p>The first of these is easy enough to explain. When Munger was Chairman of the Daily Journal, he managed the investment portfolio. Now that he is no longer Chairman, he simply has the duties of a director. Munger could still volunteer to manage the portfolio, but the ultimate decisions would fall on Steven Myhill-Jones, the new CEO, or Tu To, the new CFO. The SEC filings announcing these new hires didn&#39;t say who&#39;d manage the portfolio.</p><p>The second reason why Munger can’t be cloned now is because some of his potential trades wouldn’t have to be disclosed. Munger is well known for not telling investors more than he has to. If he simply converted some of his NYSE ADRs to Hong Kong shares, as some think he did, then he is no longer under the obligation to report all of his holdings. As the SEC website states, you don’t have to disclose foreign listed shares in a 13F, even if your position is massive.</p><p><img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/5852b29d02869d997a4c8ce719caa59f\" tg-width=\"575\" tg-height=\"191\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\" width=\"100%\" height=\"auto\"/></p><p>What all this means is that cloning Munger’s BABA trades won’t be possible going forward. For those whose BABA position was little more than a Munger copycat, that has got to sting. Fortunately, the fundamentals-based thesis on the stock is not that difficult to comprehend, and can be explained in terms of four basic principles. In the next section I will explain that case in detail.</p><h2>The Bullish Thesis on BABA</h2><p>A strong bullish thesis on BABA can be built on four pillars:</p><ul><li>China’s economy.</li><li>BABA’s competitive position.</li><li>Financial health.</li><li>Valuation.</li></ul><p>I’ll look at each of these factors one by one, starting with China’s economy</p><h2>China’s Economy</h2><p>Despite the negative headlines you’re seeing these days, China’s economy is very strong. Its GDP growth was 8.1% in 2021. GDP has grown at 7.4% CAGR over 10 years. In 2020, when many countries entered recessions, China’s growth merely decelerated to 2.2%. With all of this growth, you might think that China is pumping itself full of debt. But think again! At 66.8, China’s government debt as a percentage of GDP is lower than that of the U.S., Canada, and the Eurozone. You may have heard stories about China’s “debt problem,” and claims of a 250% debt to GDP ratio. The figure is correct but it includes all debt, government and private. China’s government debt–the kind used to pay for fiscal stimulus–is low as a percentage of GDP. So China is growing very quickly and is fiscally sound enough to stimulate its economy should stimulation become necessary.</p><h2>BABA’s Competitive Position</h2><p>As we’ve seen, China has a high growth economy–the kind of economy that a company wants to operate in. That’s a great start but we still need to know about BABA’s competitive position.</p><p>As an eCommerce company, BABA has few rivals of similar scale. JD.com (JD) technically does more revenue than BABA does, but it has much smaller margins. It could beat Alibaba on scale but probably not on profitability. JD holds and sells inventory. It’s hard to beat a “platform” company like BABA when you have inventory costs. It eats into margins.</p><p>Pinduoduo (PDD) has been cited as a potential competitor to BABA but there’s just not much evidence of PDD moving beyond agricultural goods. Its group buying model has proven popular in China, but until it moves into other verticals, it’s not competing with huge chunks of Alibaba’s business.</p><p>Tencent (OTCPK:TCEHY) competes with BABA in one limited way: it has a payment app. The Chinese government forced BABA and Tencent to accept each other’s payment apps last year. So the competition between these two companies for share of payments has indeed increased.</p><h2>BABA’s Financials</h2><p>Alibaba’s long-term financials are excellent. The most recent calendar year was a bit of a departure from the long term trend, but that could turn around.</p><p>According to Seeking Alpha Quant, BABA’s five year CAGR growth rates in revenue, earnings and cash flows are:</p><ul><li>Revenue: 42%.</li><li>Net income: 11.3%.</li><li>Diluted EPS: 9.8%.</li><li>Free cash flow: 13.66%.</li></ul><p>These are pretty solid metrics. They were all much higher prior to this year, but the 2021 Chinese tech crackdown caused last year’s numbers to suffer. BABA did take some new costs in 2021, like a $2.8 billion fine and a higher tax rate. However, the fine was non-recurring and the higher tax rate could be “outgrown” with enough quarters of strong revenue gains.</p><p>At any rate, Alibaba has more than enough financial strength to ride out a few lacklustre quarters. Its balance sheet is one of the strongest in the world, boasting eye-popping metrics like:</p><ul><li>$276 billion in assets.</li><li>$100 billion in liabilities.</li><li>$176 billion in equity.</li><li>$45 billion in cash.</li><li>About $20 billion in debt (calculated from $5.09 billion in bonds $14.85 billion in long term bank loans).</li><li>$105 billion in current assets.</li><li>$64 billion in current liabilities.</li><li>A 0.2 debt to equity ratio.</li><li>A 1.64 current ratio.</li></ul><p>So we have debt that is very low as a proportion of shareholder equity, and high liquidity. Even BABA’s cash and equivalents outstrip its long term debt! This suggests a very solid balance sheet and a second-to-none ability to ride out a crisis.</p><h2>Valuation</h2><p>Valuation has always been one of the pillars on which the BABA bull case has rested. BABA stock is very cheap by almost every multiple you can think of. Some of its most encouraging value metrics include:</p><ul><li>Adjusted P/E: 11.</li><li>Price/sales: 1.96.</li><li>Price/book: 1.67.</li><li>Price/operating cash flow: 9.37.</li></ul><p>All of these multiples are comparatively low for the tech sector. For comparison, Amazon (AMZN), the closest comparable U.S. company, has a 46 adjusted P/E ratio.</p><p>BABA’s GAAP P/E ratio (25) is a little high, but the most recent quarter included large unrealized losses on the company’s stock portfolio. Adjusted earnings and cash from operations are more closely related to the company’s operating performance, and not surprisingly, they were much higher than GAAP earnings. This isn’t just selective choice of non-GAAP measures either: operating cash flow is a GAAP metric and Alibaba reports in accordance with U.S. GAAP.</p><p>As we’ve seen, Alibaba is cheap, profitable, and has high historical growth. Certainly this stock has many things to recommend it, even after Charlie Munger rode off into the sunset. However, there are still risks and challenges to the bullish thesis on Alibaba stock. </p><p>These are real risks that investors will need to keep in mind. But on balance, Alibaba looks like a solid value play today. It’s still growing its revenue, its cloud business is inching toward profitability, and its valuation is cheaper than ever before. On the whole, it looks like a sweet deal – with or without Munger on board.</p></body></html>","collect":0,"html":"<!DOCTYPE html>\n<html>\n<head>\n<meta http-equiv=\"Content-Type\" content=\"text/html; charset=utf-8\" />\n<meta name=\"viewport\" content=\"width=device-width,initial-scale=1.0,minimum-scale=1.0,maximum-scale=1.0,user-scalable=no\"/>\n<meta name=\"format-detection\" content=\"telephone=no,email=no,address=no\" />\n<title>Alibaba: Munger Is Not The Thesis</title>\n<style type=\"text/css\">\na,abbr,acronym,address,applet,article,aside,audio,b,big,blockquote,body,canvas,caption,center,cite,code,dd,del,details,dfn,div,dl,dt,\nem,embed,fieldset,figcaption,figure,footer,form,h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6,header,hgroup,html,i,iframe,img,ins,kbd,label,legend,li,mark,menu,nav,\nobject,ol,output,p,pre,q,ruby,s,samp,section,small,span,strike,strong,sub,summary,sup,table,tbody,td,tfoot,th,thead,time,tr,tt,u,ul,var,video{ font:inherit;margin:0;padding:0;vertical-align:baseline;border:0 }\nbody{ font-size:16px; line-height:1.5; color:#999; background:transparent; }\n.wrapper{ overflow:hidden;word-break:break-all;padding:10px; }\nh1,h2{ font-weight:normal; line-height:1.35; margin-bottom:.6em; }\nh3,h4,h5,h6{ line-height:1.35; margin-bottom:1em; }\nh1{ font-size:24px; }\nh2{ font-size:20px; }\nh3{ font-size:18px; }\nh4{ font-size:16px; }\nh5{ font-size:14px; }\nh6{ font-size:12px; }\np,ul,ol,blockquote,dl,table{ margin:1.2em 0; }\nul,ol{ margin-left:2em; }\nul{ list-style:disc; }\nol{ list-style:decimal; }\nli,li p{ margin:10px 0;}\nimg{ max-width:100%;display:block;margin:0 auto 1em; }\nblockquote{ color:#B5B2B1; border-left:3px solid #aaa; padding:1em; }\nstrong,b{font-weight:bold;}\nem,i{font-style:italic;}\ntable{ width:100%;border-collapse:collapse;border-spacing:1px;margin:1em 0;font-size:.9em; }\nth,td{ padding:5px;text-align:left;border:1px solid #aaa; }\nth{ font-weight:bold;background:#5d5d5d; }\n.symbol-link{font-weight:bold;}\n/* header{ border-bottom:1px solid #494756; } */\n.title{ margin:0 0 8px;line-height:1.3;color:#ddd; }\n.meta {color:#5e5c6d;font-size:13px;margin:0 0 .5em; }\na{text-decoration:none; color:#2a4b87;}\n.meta .head { display: inline-block; overflow: hidden}\n.head .h-thumb { width: 30px; height: 30px; margin: 0; padding: 0; border-radius: 50%; float: left;}\n.head .h-content { margin: 0; padding: 0 0 0 9px; float: left;}\n.head .h-name {font-size: 13px; color: #eee; margin: 0;}\n.head .h-time {font-size: 11px; color: #7E829C; margin: 0;line-height: 11px;}\n.small {font-size: 12.5px; display: inline-block; transform: scale(0.9); -webkit-transform: scale(0.9); transform-origin: left; -webkit-transform-origin: left;}\n.smaller {font-size: 12.5px; display: inline-block; transform: scale(0.8); -webkit-transform: scale(0.8); transform-origin: left; -webkit-transform-origin: left;}\n.bt-text {font-size: 12px;margin: 1.5em 0 0 0}\n.bt-text p {margin: 0}\n</style>\n</head>\n<body>\n<div class=\"wrapper\">\n<header>\n<h2 class=\"title\">\nAlibaba: Munger Is Not The Thesis\n</h2>\n\n<h4 class=\"meta\">\n\n\n2022-04-18 13:16 GMT+8&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href=https://seekingalpha.com/article/4501707-alibaba-munger-not-thesis><strong>Seeking Alpha</strong></a>\n\n\n</h4>\n\n</header>\n<article>\n<div>\n<p>SummaryRecently the Daily Journal's 13F revealed that the company trimmed its Alibaba position by 50%.It isn't necessarily the case that former Chairman Charlie Munger sold due to weakening conviction...</p>\n\n<a href=\"https://seekingalpha.com/article/4501707-alibaba-munger-not-thesis\">Web Link</a>\n\n</div>\n\n\n</article>\n</div>\n</body>\n</html>\n","type":0,"thumbnail":"","relate_stocks":{"BABA":"阿里巴巴"},"source_url":"https://seekingalpha.com/article/4501707-alibaba-munger-not-thesis","is_english":true,"share_image_url":"https://static.laohu8.com/e9f99090a1c2ed51c021029395664489","article_id":"1110595663","content_text":"SummaryRecently the Daily Journal's 13F revealed that the company trimmed its Alibaba position by 50%.It isn't necessarily the case that former Chairman Charlie Munger sold due to weakening conviction on BABA stock itself.However, Munger IS out of the picture in one very real way: he is no longer the Daily Journal's Chairman.For this reason, Alibaba can no longer be considered a Munger copy trade.In this article, I develop a fundamentals-based thesis for those who cloned Munger and now aren't sure what to do.Charlie Munger’s Alibaba Group (NYSE:BABA) investment was the talk of the town last week. In its Q1 13F, the Daily Journal Corp (DJCO) revealed that it had sold 50% of its stake in the Chinese tech company, after several quarters of averaging down. It wasn’t immediately clear whether Munger himself made the decision to sell the shares, as he had stepped down just days before the end of the quarter. Tu To was elected to serve as the company’s CFO on March 22. She signed all of the company’s SEC filings from the 22nd onward.There are many reasons why Munger (or somebody else) might have chosen to sell Alibaba. Not all of them necessarily reflect lower conviction in the stock. It’s possible that DJCO converted some of its NYSE shares to Hong Kong shares, or sold to cover a margin loan. Munger hasn’t spoken on the matter publicly yet, nor have any other DJCO officers, so we don’t know.Charlie Munger is thought to have influenced many investors who bought BABA stock in 2021. He began buying the stock around $226, averaging down after that. Many other investors made similar moves. It was shortly after Munger’s first 13F featuring Alibaba that internet communities focused on BABA really started to take off. Some were founded just days after the release.Naturally, Munger’s apparent sale made a big splash. BABA has always been at least partially a Munger clone trade, and it appears that Munger’s conviction in the stock has diminished. Shortly after the 13F was released, investors took to Twitter offering opinions and running polls asking others about what had happened.We may never know. But it doesn’t matter, because BABA ceased being a Munger clone trade long before the 13F came out. When Munger stepped down as Chairman of the Daily Journal, it created ambiguity as to the actual level of influence he will exercise over the firm’s portfolio going forward. The DJCO portfolio is no longer a Munger portfolio–or at least, not 100% a Munger portfolio. For this reason, investors will need a better thesis than “clone Munger because he is good.” In this article, I will attempt to advance such a thesis, based on valuation, competitive position and China's economic growth. First, though, let’s examine why it will not be possible to clone “Munger’s” BABA trades in future quarters.Why Munger Can’t be Cloned AnymoreThere are two reasons why it is impossible to clone Munger’s future BABA trades:Munger is no longer Chairman of the Daily Journal.Some of DJCO’s potential trades are impossible to confirm.The first of these is easy enough to explain. When Munger was Chairman of the Daily Journal, he managed the investment portfolio. Now that he is no longer Chairman, he simply has the duties of a director. Munger could still volunteer to manage the portfolio, but the ultimate decisions would fall on Steven Myhill-Jones, the new CEO, or Tu To, the new CFO. The SEC filings announcing these new hires didn't say who'd manage the portfolio.The second reason why Munger can’t be cloned now is because some of his potential trades wouldn’t have to be disclosed. Munger is well known for not telling investors more than he has to. If he simply converted some of his NYSE ADRs to Hong Kong shares, as some think he did, then he is no longer under the obligation to report all of his holdings. As the SEC website states, you don’t have to disclose foreign listed shares in a 13F, even if your position is massive.What all this means is that cloning Munger’s BABA trades won’t be possible going forward. For those whose BABA position was little more than a Munger copycat, that has got to sting. Fortunately, the fundamentals-based thesis on the stock is not that difficult to comprehend, and can be explained in terms of four basic principles. In the next section I will explain that case in detail.The Bullish Thesis on BABAA strong bullish thesis on BABA can be built on four pillars:China’s economy.BABA’s competitive position.Financial health.Valuation.I’ll look at each of these factors one by one, starting with China’s economyChina’s EconomyDespite the negative headlines you’re seeing these days, China’s economy is very strong. Its GDP growth was 8.1% in 2021. GDP has grown at 7.4% CAGR over 10 years. In 2020, when many countries entered recessions, China’s growth merely decelerated to 2.2%. With all of this growth, you might think that China is pumping itself full of debt. But think again! At 66.8, China’s government debt as a percentage of GDP is lower than that of the U.S., Canada, and the Eurozone. You may have heard stories about China’s “debt problem,” and claims of a 250% debt to GDP ratio. The figure is correct but it includes all debt, government and private. China’s government debt–the kind used to pay for fiscal stimulus–is low as a percentage of GDP. So China is growing very quickly and is fiscally sound enough to stimulate its economy should stimulation become necessary.BABA’s Competitive PositionAs we’ve seen, China has a high growth economy–the kind of economy that a company wants to operate in. That’s a great start but we still need to know about BABA’s competitive position.As an eCommerce company, BABA has few rivals of similar scale. JD.com (JD) technically does more revenue than BABA does, but it has much smaller margins. It could beat Alibaba on scale but probably not on profitability. JD holds and sells inventory. It’s hard to beat a “platform” company like BABA when you have inventory costs. It eats into margins.Pinduoduo (PDD) has been cited as a potential competitor to BABA but there’s just not much evidence of PDD moving beyond agricultural goods. Its group buying model has proven popular in China, but until it moves into other verticals, it’s not competing with huge chunks of Alibaba’s business.Tencent (OTCPK:TCEHY) competes with BABA in one limited way: it has a payment app. The Chinese government forced BABA and Tencent to accept each other’s payment apps last year. So the competition between these two companies for share of payments has indeed increased.BABA’s FinancialsAlibaba’s long-term financials are excellent. The most recent calendar year was a bit of a departure from the long term trend, but that could turn around.According to Seeking Alpha Quant, BABA’s five year CAGR growth rates in revenue, earnings and cash flows are:Revenue: 42%.Net income: 11.3%.Diluted EPS: 9.8%.Free cash flow: 13.66%.These are pretty solid metrics. They were all much higher prior to this year, but the 2021 Chinese tech crackdown caused last year’s numbers to suffer. BABA did take some new costs in 2021, like a $2.8 billion fine and a higher tax rate. However, the fine was non-recurring and the higher tax rate could be “outgrown” with enough quarters of strong revenue gains.At any rate, Alibaba has more than enough financial strength to ride out a few lacklustre quarters. Its balance sheet is one of the strongest in the world, boasting eye-popping metrics like:$276 billion in assets.$100 billion in liabilities.$176 billion in equity.$45 billion in cash.About $20 billion in debt (calculated from $5.09 billion in bonds $14.85 billion in long term bank loans).$105 billion in current assets.$64 billion in current liabilities.A 0.2 debt to equity ratio.A 1.64 current ratio.So we have debt that is very low as a proportion of shareholder equity, and high liquidity. Even BABA’s cash and equivalents outstrip its long term debt! This suggests a very solid balance sheet and a second-to-none ability to ride out a crisis.ValuationValuation has always been one of the pillars on which the BABA bull case has rested. BABA stock is very cheap by almost every multiple you can think of. Some of its most encouraging value metrics include:Adjusted P/E: 11.Price/sales: 1.96.Price/book: 1.67.Price/operating cash flow: 9.37.All of these multiples are comparatively low for the tech sector. For comparison, Amazon (AMZN), the closest comparable U.S. company, has a 46 adjusted P/E ratio.BABA’s GAAP P/E ratio (25) is a little high, but the most recent quarter included large unrealized losses on the company’s stock portfolio. Adjusted earnings and cash from operations are more closely related to the company’s operating performance, and not surprisingly, they were much higher than GAAP earnings. This isn’t just selective choice of non-GAAP measures either: operating cash flow is a GAAP metric and Alibaba reports in accordance with U.S. GAAP.As we’ve seen, Alibaba is cheap, profitable, and has high historical growth. Certainly this stock has many things to recommend it, even after Charlie Munger rode off into the sunset. However, there are still risks and challenges to the bullish thesis on Alibaba stock. These are real risks that investors will need to keep in mind. But on balance, Alibaba looks like a solid value play today. It’s still growing its revenue, its cloud business is inching toward profitability, and its valuation is cheaper than ever before. On the whole, it looks like a sweet deal – with or without Munger on board.","news_type":1},"isVote":1,"likeStatus":false,"favoriteStatus":false,"reportStatus":false,"tweetType":1,"langContent":"EN"},{"id":9081413746,"gmtCreate":1650264116774,"gmtModify":1676534682053,"author":{"id":"4095985983723070","authorId":"4095985983723070","name":"CTSM","avatar":"https://static.laohu8.com/default-avatar.jpg","vip":1,"hat":"https://static.tigerbbs.com/b0a2963eb37c60c5d6d4a8dbcd266952","crmLevel":2,"crmLevelSwitch":0},"htmlText":"Thanks for the read&nbsp;","listText":"Thanks for the read&nbsp;","text":"Thanks for the read","images":[],"top":1,"highlighted":1,"essential":1,"paper":1,"likeSize":2,"commentSize":0,"repostSize":0,"link":"https://ttm.financial/post/9081413746","repostId":1110595663,"repostType":4,"repost":{"id":"1110595663","pubTimestamp":1650258996,"share":"https://www.laohu8.com/m/news/1110595663?lang=&edition=full","pubTime":"2022-04-18 13:16","market":"us","language":"en","title":"Alibaba: Munger Is Not The Thesis","url":"https://stock-news.laohu8.com/highlight/detail?id=1110595663","media":"Seeking Alpha","summary":"SummaryRecently the Daily Journal's 13F revealed that the company trimmed its Alibaba position by 50%.It isn't necessarily the case that former Chairman Charlie Munger sold due to weakening conviction","content":"<html><head></head><body><p>Summary</p><ul><li>Recently the Daily Journal&#39;s 13F revealed that the company trimmed its Alibaba position by 50%.</li><li>It isn&#39;t necessarily the case that former Chairman Charlie Munger sold due to weakening conviction on BABA stock itself.</li><li>However, Munger IS out of the picture in one very real way: he is no longer the Daily Journal&#39;s Chairman.</li><li>For this reason, Alibaba can no longer be considered a Munger copy trade.</li><li>In this article, I develop a fundamentals-based thesis for those who cloned Munger and now aren&#39;t sure what to do.</li></ul><p>Charlie Munger’s Alibaba Group (NYSE:BABA) investment was the talk of the town last week. In its Q1 13F, the Daily Journal Corp (DJCO) revealed that it had sold 50% of its stake in the Chinese tech company, after several quarters of averaging down. It wasn’t immediately clear whether Munger himself made the decision to sell the shares, as he had stepped down just days before the end of the quarter. Tu To was elected to serve as the company’s CFO on March 22. She signed all of the company’s SEC filings from the 22nd onward.</p><p>There are many reasons why Munger (or somebody else) might have chosen to sell Alibaba. Not all of them necessarily reflect lower conviction in the stock. It’s possible that DJCO converted some of its NYSE shares to Hong Kong shares, or sold to cover a margin loan. Munger hasn’t spoken on the matter publicly yet, nor have any other DJCO officers, so we don’t know.</p><p>Charlie Munger is thought to have influenced many investors who bought BABA stock in 2021. He began buying the stock around $226, averaging down after that. Many other investors made similar moves. It was shortly after Munger’s first 13F featuring Alibaba that internet communities focused on BABA really started to take off. Some were founded just days after the release.</p><p>Naturally, Munger’s apparent sale made a big splash. BABA has always been at least partially a Munger clone trade, and it appears that Munger’s conviction in the stock has diminished. Shortly after the 13F was released, investors took to Twitter offering opinions and running polls asking others about what had happened.</p><p>We may never know. But it doesn’t matter, because BABA ceased being a Munger clone trade long before the 13F came out. When Munger stepped down as Chairman of the Daily Journal, it created ambiguity as to the actual level of influence he will exercise over the firm’s portfolio going forward. The DJCO portfolio is no longer a Munger portfolio–or at least, not 100% a Munger portfolio. For this reason, investors will need a better thesis than “clone Munger because he is good.” In this article, I will attempt to advance such a thesis, based on valuation, competitive position and China&#39;s economic growth. First, though, let’s examine why it will not be possible to clone “Munger’s” BABA trades in future quarters.</p><p>Why Munger Can’t be Cloned Anymore</p><p>There are two reasons why it is impossible to clone Munger’s future BABA trades:</p><ol><li>Munger is no longer Chairman of the Daily Journal.</li><li>Some of DJCO’s potential trades are impossible to confirm.</li></ol><p>The first of these is easy enough to explain. When Munger was Chairman of the Daily Journal, he managed the investment portfolio. Now that he is no longer Chairman, he simply has the duties of a director. Munger could still volunteer to manage the portfolio, but the ultimate decisions would fall on Steven Myhill-Jones, the new CEO, or Tu To, the new CFO. The SEC filings announcing these new hires didn&#39;t say who&#39;d manage the portfolio.</p><p>The second reason why Munger can’t be cloned now is because some of his potential trades wouldn’t have to be disclosed. Munger is well known for not telling investors more than he has to. If he simply converted some of his NYSE ADRs to Hong Kong shares, as some think he did, then he is no longer under the obligation to report all of his holdings. As the SEC website states, you don’t have to disclose foreign listed shares in a 13F, even if your position is massive.</p><p><img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/5852b29d02869d997a4c8ce719caa59f\" tg-width=\"575\" tg-height=\"191\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\" width=\"100%\" height=\"auto\"/></p><p>What all this means is that cloning Munger’s BABA trades won’t be possible going forward. For those whose BABA position was little more than a Munger copycat, that has got to sting. Fortunately, the fundamentals-based thesis on the stock is not that difficult to comprehend, and can be explained in terms of four basic principles. In the next section I will explain that case in detail.</p><h2>The Bullish Thesis on BABA</h2><p>A strong bullish thesis on BABA can be built on four pillars:</p><ul><li>China’s economy.</li><li>BABA’s competitive position.</li><li>Financial health.</li><li>Valuation.</li></ul><p>I’ll look at each of these factors one by one, starting with China’s economy</p><h2>China’s Economy</h2><p>Despite the negative headlines you’re seeing these days, China’s economy is very strong. Its GDP growth was 8.1% in 2021. GDP has grown at 7.4% CAGR over 10 years. In 2020, when many countries entered recessions, China’s growth merely decelerated to 2.2%. With all of this growth, you might think that China is pumping itself full of debt. But think again! At 66.8, China’s government debt as a percentage of GDP is lower than that of the U.S., Canada, and the Eurozone. You may have heard stories about China’s “debt problem,” and claims of a 250% debt to GDP ratio. The figure is correct but it includes all debt, government and private. China’s government debt–the kind used to pay for fiscal stimulus–is low as a percentage of GDP. So China is growing very quickly and is fiscally sound enough to stimulate its economy should stimulation become necessary.</p><h2>BABA’s Competitive Position</h2><p>As we’ve seen, China has a high growth economy–the kind of economy that a company wants to operate in. That’s a great start but we still need to know about BABA’s competitive position.</p><p>As an eCommerce company, BABA has few rivals of similar scale. JD.com (JD) technically does more revenue than BABA does, but it has much smaller margins. It could beat Alibaba on scale but probably not on profitability. JD holds and sells inventory. It’s hard to beat a “platform” company like BABA when you have inventory costs. It eats into margins.</p><p>Pinduoduo (PDD) has been cited as a potential competitor to BABA but there’s just not much evidence of PDD moving beyond agricultural goods. Its group buying model has proven popular in China, but until it moves into other verticals, it’s not competing with huge chunks of Alibaba’s business.</p><p>Tencent (OTCPK:TCEHY) competes with BABA in one limited way: it has a payment app. The Chinese government forced BABA and Tencent to accept each other’s payment apps last year. So the competition between these two companies for share of payments has indeed increased.</p><h2>BABA’s Financials</h2><p>Alibaba’s long-term financials are excellent. The most recent calendar year was a bit of a departure from the long term trend, but that could turn around.</p><p>According to Seeking Alpha Quant, BABA’s five year CAGR growth rates in revenue, earnings and cash flows are:</p><ul><li>Revenue: 42%.</li><li>Net income: 11.3%.</li><li>Diluted EPS: 9.8%.</li><li>Free cash flow: 13.66%.</li></ul><p>These are pretty solid metrics. They were all much higher prior to this year, but the 2021 Chinese tech crackdown caused last year’s numbers to suffer. BABA did take some new costs in 2021, like a $2.8 billion fine and a higher tax rate. However, the fine was non-recurring and the higher tax rate could be “outgrown” with enough quarters of strong revenue gains.</p><p>At any rate, Alibaba has more than enough financial strength to ride out a few lacklustre quarters. Its balance sheet is one of the strongest in the world, boasting eye-popping metrics like:</p><ul><li>$276 billion in assets.</li><li>$100 billion in liabilities.</li><li>$176 billion in equity.</li><li>$45 billion in cash.</li><li>About $20 billion in debt (calculated from $5.09 billion in bonds $14.85 billion in long term bank loans).</li><li>$105 billion in current assets.</li><li>$64 billion in current liabilities.</li><li>A 0.2 debt to equity ratio.</li><li>A 1.64 current ratio.</li></ul><p>So we have debt that is very low as a proportion of shareholder equity, and high liquidity. Even BABA’s cash and equivalents outstrip its long term debt! This suggests a very solid balance sheet and a second-to-none ability to ride out a crisis.</p><h2>Valuation</h2><p>Valuation has always been one of the pillars on which the BABA bull case has rested. BABA stock is very cheap by almost every multiple you can think of. Some of its most encouraging value metrics include:</p><ul><li>Adjusted P/E: 11.</li><li>Price/sales: 1.96.</li><li>Price/book: 1.67.</li><li>Price/operating cash flow: 9.37.</li></ul><p>All of these multiples are comparatively low for the tech sector. For comparison, Amazon (AMZN), the closest comparable U.S. company, has a 46 adjusted P/E ratio.</p><p>BABA’s GAAP P/E ratio (25) is a little high, but the most recent quarter included large unrealized losses on the company’s stock portfolio. Adjusted earnings and cash from operations are more closely related to the company’s operating performance, and not surprisingly, they were much higher than GAAP earnings. This isn’t just selective choice of non-GAAP measures either: operating cash flow is a GAAP metric and Alibaba reports in accordance with U.S. GAAP.</p><p>As we’ve seen, Alibaba is cheap, profitable, and has high historical growth. Certainly this stock has many things to recommend it, even after Charlie Munger rode off into the sunset. However, there are still risks and challenges to the bullish thesis on Alibaba stock. </p><p>These are real risks that investors will need to keep in mind. But on balance, Alibaba looks like a solid value play today. It’s still growing its revenue, its cloud business is inching toward profitability, and its valuation is cheaper than ever before. On the whole, it looks like a sweet deal – with or without Munger on board.</p></body></html>","collect":0,"html":"<!DOCTYPE html>\n<html>\n<head>\n<meta http-equiv=\"Content-Type\" content=\"text/html; charset=utf-8\" />\n<meta name=\"viewport\" content=\"width=device-width,initial-scale=1.0,minimum-scale=1.0,maximum-scale=1.0,user-scalable=no\"/>\n<meta name=\"format-detection\" content=\"telephone=no,email=no,address=no\" />\n<title>Alibaba: Munger Is Not The Thesis</title>\n<style type=\"text/css\">\na,abbr,acronym,address,applet,article,aside,audio,b,big,blockquote,body,canvas,caption,center,cite,code,dd,del,details,dfn,div,dl,dt,\nem,embed,fieldset,figcaption,figure,footer,form,h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6,header,hgroup,html,i,iframe,img,ins,kbd,label,legend,li,mark,menu,nav,\nobject,ol,output,p,pre,q,ruby,s,samp,section,small,span,strike,strong,sub,summary,sup,table,tbody,td,tfoot,th,thead,time,tr,tt,u,ul,var,video{ font:inherit;margin:0;padding:0;vertical-align:baseline;border:0 }\nbody{ font-size:16px; line-height:1.5; color:#999; background:transparent; }\n.wrapper{ overflow:hidden;word-break:break-all;padding:10px; }\nh1,h2{ font-weight:normal; line-height:1.35; margin-bottom:.6em; }\nh3,h4,h5,h6{ line-height:1.35; margin-bottom:1em; }\nh1{ font-size:24px; }\nh2{ font-size:20px; }\nh3{ font-size:18px; }\nh4{ font-size:16px; }\nh5{ font-size:14px; }\nh6{ font-size:12px; }\np,ul,ol,blockquote,dl,table{ margin:1.2em 0; }\nul,ol{ margin-left:2em; }\nul{ list-style:disc; }\nol{ list-style:decimal; }\nli,li p{ margin:10px 0;}\nimg{ max-width:100%;display:block;margin:0 auto 1em; }\nblockquote{ color:#B5B2B1; border-left:3px solid #aaa; padding:1em; }\nstrong,b{font-weight:bold;}\nem,i{font-style:italic;}\ntable{ width:100%;border-collapse:collapse;border-spacing:1px;margin:1em 0;font-size:.9em; }\nth,td{ padding:5px;text-align:left;border:1px solid #aaa; }\nth{ font-weight:bold;background:#5d5d5d; }\n.symbol-link{font-weight:bold;}\n/* header{ border-bottom:1px solid #494756; } */\n.title{ margin:0 0 8px;line-height:1.3;color:#ddd; }\n.meta {color:#5e5c6d;font-size:13px;margin:0 0 .5em; }\na{text-decoration:none; color:#2a4b87;}\n.meta .head { display: inline-block; overflow: hidden}\n.head .h-thumb { width: 30px; height: 30px; margin: 0; padding: 0; border-radius: 50%; float: left;}\n.head .h-content { margin: 0; padding: 0 0 0 9px; float: left;}\n.head .h-name {font-size: 13px; color: #eee; margin: 0;}\n.head .h-time {font-size: 11px; color: #7E829C; margin: 0;line-height: 11px;}\n.small {font-size: 12.5px; display: inline-block; transform: scale(0.9); -webkit-transform: scale(0.9); transform-origin: left; -webkit-transform-origin: left;}\n.smaller {font-size: 12.5px; display: inline-block; transform: scale(0.8); -webkit-transform: scale(0.8); transform-origin: left; -webkit-transform-origin: left;}\n.bt-text {font-size: 12px;margin: 1.5em 0 0 0}\n.bt-text p {margin: 0}\n</style>\n</head>\n<body>\n<div class=\"wrapper\">\n<header>\n<h2 class=\"title\">\nAlibaba: Munger Is Not The Thesis\n</h2>\n\n<h4 class=\"meta\">\n\n\n2022-04-18 13:16 GMT+8&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href=https://seekingalpha.com/article/4501707-alibaba-munger-not-thesis><strong>Seeking Alpha</strong></a>\n\n\n</h4>\n\n</header>\n<article>\n<div>\n<p>SummaryRecently the Daily Journal's 13F revealed that the company trimmed its Alibaba position by 50%.It isn't necessarily the case that former Chairman Charlie Munger sold due to weakening conviction...</p>\n\n<a href=\"https://seekingalpha.com/article/4501707-alibaba-munger-not-thesis\">Web Link</a>\n\n</div>\n\n\n</article>\n</div>\n</body>\n</html>\n","type":0,"thumbnail":"","relate_stocks":{"BABA":"阿里巴巴"},"source_url":"https://seekingalpha.com/article/4501707-alibaba-munger-not-thesis","is_english":true,"share_image_url":"https://static.laohu8.com/e9f99090a1c2ed51c021029395664489","article_id":"1110595663","content_text":"SummaryRecently the Daily Journal's 13F revealed that the company trimmed its Alibaba position by 50%.It isn't necessarily the case that former Chairman Charlie Munger sold due to weakening conviction on BABA stock itself.However, Munger IS out of the picture in one very real way: he is no longer the Daily Journal's Chairman.For this reason, Alibaba can no longer be considered a Munger copy trade.In this article, I develop a fundamentals-based thesis for those who cloned Munger and now aren't sure what to do.Charlie Munger’s Alibaba Group (NYSE:BABA) investment was the talk of the town last week. In its Q1 13F, the Daily Journal Corp (DJCO) revealed that it had sold 50% of its stake in the Chinese tech company, after several quarters of averaging down. It wasn’t immediately clear whether Munger himself made the decision to sell the shares, as he had stepped down just days before the end of the quarter. Tu To was elected to serve as the company’s CFO on March 22. She signed all of the company’s SEC filings from the 22nd onward.There are many reasons why Munger (or somebody else) might have chosen to sell Alibaba. Not all of them necessarily reflect lower conviction in the stock. It’s possible that DJCO converted some of its NYSE shares to Hong Kong shares, or sold to cover a margin loan. Munger hasn’t spoken on the matter publicly yet, nor have any other DJCO officers, so we don’t know.Charlie Munger is thought to have influenced many investors who bought BABA stock in 2021. He began buying the stock around $226, averaging down after that. Many other investors made similar moves. It was shortly after Munger’s first 13F featuring Alibaba that internet communities focused on BABA really started to take off. Some were founded just days after the release.Naturally, Munger’s apparent sale made a big splash. BABA has always been at least partially a Munger clone trade, and it appears that Munger’s conviction in the stock has diminished. Shortly after the 13F was released, investors took to Twitter offering opinions and running polls asking others about what had happened.We may never know. But it doesn’t matter, because BABA ceased being a Munger clone trade long before the 13F came out. When Munger stepped down as Chairman of the Daily Journal, it created ambiguity as to the actual level of influence he will exercise over the firm’s portfolio going forward. The DJCO portfolio is no longer a Munger portfolio–or at least, not 100% a Munger portfolio. For this reason, investors will need a better thesis than “clone Munger because he is good.” In this article, I will attempt to advance such a thesis, based on valuation, competitive position and China's economic growth. First, though, let’s examine why it will not be possible to clone “Munger’s” BABA trades in future quarters.Why Munger Can’t be Cloned AnymoreThere are two reasons why it is impossible to clone Munger’s future BABA trades:Munger is no longer Chairman of the Daily Journal.Some of DJCO’s potential trades are impossible to confirm.The first of these is easy enough to explain. When Munger was Chairman of the Daily Journal, he managed the investment portfolio. Now that he is no longer Chairman, he simply has the duties of a director. Munger could still volunteer to manage the portfolio, but the ultimate decisions would fall on Steven Myhill-Jones, the new CEO, or Tu To, the new CFO. The SEC filings announcing these new hires didn't say who'd manage the portfolio.The second reason why Munger can’t be cloned now is because some of his potential trades wouldn’t have to be disclosed. Munger is well known for not telling investors more than he has to. If he simply converted some of his NYSE ADRs to Hong Kong shares, as some think he did, then he is no longer under the obligation to report all of his holdings. As the SEC website states, you don’t have to disclose foreign listed shares in a 13F, even if your position is massive.What all this means is that cloning Munger’s BABA trades won’t be possible going forward. For those whose BABA position was little more than a Munger copycat, that has got to sting. Fortunately, the fundamentals-based thesis on the stock is not that difficult to comprehend, and can be explained in terms of four basic principles. In the next section I will explain that case in detail.The Bullish Thesis on BABAA strong bullish thesis on BABA can be built on four pillars:China’s economy.BABA’s competitive position.Financial health.Valuation.I’ll look at each of these factors one by one, starting with China’s economyChina’s EconomyDespite the negative headlines you’re seeing these days, China’s economy is very strong. Its GDP growth was 8.1% in 2021. GDP has grown at 7.4% CAGR over 10 years. In 2020, when many countries entered recessions, China’s growth merely decelerated to 2.2%. With all of this growth, you might think that China is pumping itself full of debt. But think again! At 66.8, China’s government debt as a percentage of GDP is lower than that of the U.S., Canada, and the Eurozone. You may have heard stories about China’s “debt problem,” and claims of a 250% debt to GDP ratio. The figure is correct but it includes all debt, government and private. China’s government debt–the kind used to pay for fiscal stimulus–is low as a percentage of GDP. So China is growing very quickly and is fiscally sound enough to stimulate its economy should stimulation become necessary.BABA’s Competitive PositionAs we’ve seen, China has a high growth economy–the kind of economy that a company wants to operate in. That’s a great start but we still need to know about BABA’s competitive position.As an eCommerce company, BABA has few rivals of similar scale. JD.com (JD) technically does more revenue than BABA does, but it has much smaller margins. It could beat Alibaba on scale but probably not on profitability. JD holds and sells inventory. It’s hard to beat a “platform” company like BABA when you have inventory costs. It eats into margins.Pinduoduo (PDD) has been cited as a potential competitor to BABA but there’s just not much evidence of PDD moving beyond agricultural goods. Its group buying model has proven popular in China, but until it moves into other verticals, it’s not competing with huge chunks of Alibaba’s business.Tencent (OTCPK:TCEHY) competes with BABA in one limited way: it has a payment app. The Chinese government forced BABA and Tencent to accept each other’s payment apps last year. So the competition between these two companies for share of payments has indeed increased.BABA’s FinancialsAlibaba’s long-term financials are excellent. The most recent calendar year was a bit of a departure from the long term trend, but that could turn around.According to Seeking Alpha Quant, BABA’s five year CAGR growth rates in revenue, earnings and cash flows are:Revenue: 42%.Net income: 11.3%.Diluted EPS: 9.8%.Free cash flow: 13.66%.These are pretty solid metrics. They were all much higher prior to this year, but the 2021 Chinese tech crackdown caused last year’s numbers to suffer. BABA did take some new costs in 2021, like a $2.8 billion fine and a higher tax rate. However, the fine was non-recurring and the higher tax rate could be “outgrown” with enough quarters of strong revenue gains.At any rate, Alibaba has more than enough financial strength to ride out a few lacklustre quarters. Its balance sheet is one of the strongest in the world, boasting eye-popping metrics like:$276 billion in assets.$100 billion in liabilities.$176 billion in equity.$45 billion in cash.About $20 billion in debt (calculated from $5.09 billion in bonds $14.85 billion in long term bank loans).$105 billion in current assets.$64 billion in current liabilities.A 0.2 debt to equity ratio.A 1.64 current ratio.So we have debt that is very low as a proportion of shareholder equity, and high liquidity. Even BABA’s cash and equivalents outstrip its long term debt! This suggests a very solid balance sheet and a second-to-none ability to ride out a crisis.ValuationValuation has always been one of the pillars on which the BABA bull case has rested. BABA stock is very cheap by almost every multiple you can think of. Some of its most encouraging value metrics include:Adjusted P/E: 11.Price/sales: 1.96.Price/book: 1.67.Price/operating cash flow: 9.37.All of these multiples are comparatively low for the tech sector. For comparison, Amazon (AMZN), the closest comparable U.S. company, has a 46 adjusted P/E ratio.BABA’s GAAP P/E ratio (25) is a little high, but the most recent quarter included large unrealized losses on the company’s stock portfolio. Adjusted earnings and cash from operations are more closely related to the company’s operating performance, and not surprisingly, they were much higher than GAAP earnings. This isn’t just selective choice of non-GAAP measures either: operating cash flow is a GAAP metric and Alibaba reports in accordance with U.S. GAAP.As we’ve seen, Alibaba is cheap, profitable, and has high historical growth. Certainly this stock has many things to recommend it, even after Charlie Munger rode off into the sunset. However, there are still risks and challenges to the bullish thesis on Alibaba stock. These are real risks that investors will need to keep in mind. But on balance, Alibaba looks like a solid value play today. It’s still growing its revenue, its cloud business is inching toward profitability, and its valuation is cheaper than ever before. On the whole, it looks like a sweet deal – with or without Munger on board.","news_type":1},"isVote":1,"likeStatus":false,"favoriteStatus":false,"reportStatus":false,"tweetType":1,"langContent":"EN"},{"id":9081437307,"gmtCreate":1650263531624,"gmtModify":1676534681957,"author":{"id":"3586678960137089","authorId":"3586678960137089","name":"JeJu","avatar":"https://static.laohu8.com/default-avatar.jpg","vip":1,"crmLevel":2,"crmLevelSwitch":0},"htmlText":"Ok","listText":"Ok","text":"Ok","images":[],"top":1,"highlighted":1,"essential":1,"paper":1,"likeSize":2,"commentSize":0,"repostSize":0,"link":"https://ttm.financial/post/9081437307","repostId":1110595663,"repostType":4,"repost":{"id":"1110595663","pubTimestamp":1650258996,"share":"https://www.laohu8.com/m/news/1110595663?lang=&edition=full","pubTime":"2022-04-18 13:16","market":"us","language":"en","title":"Alibaba: Munger Is Not The Thesis","url":"https://stock-news.laohu8.com/highlight/detail?id=1110595663","media":"Seeking Alpha","summary":"SummaryRecently the Daily Journal's 13F revealed that the company trimmed its Alibaba position by 50%.It isn't necessarily the case that former Chairman Charlie Munger sold due to weakening conviction","content":"<html><head></head><body><p>Summary</p><ul><li>Recently the Daily Journal&#39;s 13F revealed that the company trimmed its Alibaba position by 50%.</li><li>It isn&#39;t necessarily the case that former Chairman Charlie Munger sold due to weakening conviction on BABA stock itself.</li><li>However, Munger IS out of the picture in one very real way: he is no longer the Daily Journal&#39;s Chairman.</li><li>For this reason, Alibaba can no longer be considered a Munger copy trade.</li><li>In this article, I develop a fundamentals-based thesis for those who cloned Munger and now aren&#39;t sure what to do.</li></ul><p>Charlie Munger’s Alibaba Group (NYSE:BABA) investment was the talk of the town last week. In its Q1 13F, the Daily Journal Corp (DJCO) revealed that it had sold 50% of its stake in the Chinese tech company, after several quarters of averaging down. It wasn’t immediately clear whether Munger himself made the decision to sell the shares, as he had stepped down just days before the end of the quarter. Tu To was elected to serve as the company’s CFO on March 22. She signed all of the company’s SEC filings from the 22nd onward.</p><p>There are many reasons why Munger (or somebody else) might have chosen to sell Alibaba. Not all of them necessarily reflect lower conviction in the stock. It’s possible that DJCO converted some of its NYSE shares to Hong Kong shares, or sold to cover a margin loan. Munger hasn’t spoken on the matter publicly yet, nor have any other DJCO officers, so we don’t know.</p><p>Charlie Munger is thought to have influenced many investors who bought BABA stock in 2021. He began buying the stock around $226, averaging down after that. Many other investors made similar moves. It was shortly after Munger’s first 13F featuring Alibaba that internet communities focused on BABA really started to take off. Some were founded just days after the release.</p><p>Naturally, Munger’s apparent sale made a big splash. BABA has always been at least partially a Munger clone trade, and it appears that Munger’s conviction in the stock has diminished. Shortly after the 13F was released, investors took to Twitter offering opinions and running polls asking others about what had happened.</p><p>We may never know. But it doesn’t matter, because BABA ceased being a Munger clone trade long before the 13F came out. When Munger stepped down as Chairman of the Daily Journal, it created ambiguity as to the actual level of influence he will exercise over the firm’s portfolio going forward. The DJCO portfolio is no longer a Munger portfolio–or at least, not 100% a Munger portfolio. For this reason, investors will need a better thesis than “clone Munger because he is good.” In this article, I will attempt to advance such a thesis, based on valuation, competitive position and China&#39;s economic growth. First, though, let’s examine why it will not be possible to clone “Munger’s” BABA trades in future quarters.</p><p>Why Munger Can’t be Cloned Anymore</p><p>There are two reasons why it is impossible to clone Munger’s future BABA trades:</p><ol><li>Munger is no longer Chairman of the Daily Journal.</li><li>Some of DJCO’s potential trades are impossible to confirm.</li></ol><p>The first of these is easy enough to explain. When Munger was Chairman of the Daily Journal, he managed the investment portfolio. Now that he is no longer Chairman, he simply has the duties of a director. Munger could still volunteer to manage the portfolio, but the ultimate decisions would fall on Steven Myhill-Jones, the new CEO, or Tu To, the new CFO. The SEC filings announcing these new hires didn&#39;t say who&#39;d manage the portfolio.</p><p>The second reason why Munger can’t be cloned now is because some of his potential trades wouldn’t have to be disclosed. Munger is well known for not telling investors more than he has to. If he simply converted some of his NYSE ADRs to Hong Kong shares, as some think he did, then he is no longer under the obligation to report all of his holdings. As the SEC website states, you don’t have to disclose foreign listed shares in a 13F, even if your position is massive.</p><p><img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/5852b29d02869d997a4c8ce719caa59f\" tg-width=\"575\" tg-height=\"191\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\" width=\"100%\" height=\"auto\"/></p><p>What all this means is that cloning Munger’s BABA trades won’t be possible going forward. For those whose BABA position was little more than a Munger copycat, that has got to sting. Fortunately, the fundamentals-based thesis on the stock is not that difficult to comprehend, and can be explained in terms of four basic principles. In the next section I will explain that case in detail.</p><h2>The Bullish Thesis on BABA</h2><p>A strong bullish thesis on BABA can be built on four pillars:</p><ul><li>China’s economy.</li><li>BABA’s competitive position.</li><li>Financial health.</li><li>Valuation.</li></ul><p>I’ll look at each of these factors one by one, starting with China’s economy</p><h2>China’s Economy</h2><p>Despite the negative headlines you’re seeing these days, China’s economy is very strong. Its GDP growth was 8.1% in 2021. GDP has grown at 7.4% CAGR over 10 years. In 2020, when many countries entered recessions, China’s growth merely decelerated to 2.2%. With all of this growth, you might think that China is pumping itself full of debt. But think again! At 66.8, China’s government debt as a percentage of GDP is lower than that of the U.S., Canada, and the Eurozone. You may have heard stories about China’s “debt problem,” and claims of a 250% debt to GDP ratio. The figure is correct but it includes all debt, government and private. China’s government debt–the kind used to pay for fiscal stimulus–is low as a percentage of GDP. So China is growing very quickly and is fiscally sound enough to stimulate its economy should stimulation become necessary.</p><h2>BABA’s Competitive Position</h2><p>As we’ve seen, China has a high growth economy–the kind of economy that a company wants to operate in. That’s a great start but we still need to know about BABA’s competitive position.</p><p>As an eCommerce company, BABA has few rivals of similar scale. JD.com (JD) technically does more revenue than BABA does, but it has much smaller margins. It could beat Alibaba on scale but probably not on profitability. JD holds and sells inventory. It’s hard to beat a “platform” company like BABA when you have inventory costs. It eats into margins.</p><p>Pinduoduo (PDD) has been cited as a potential competitor to BABA but there’s just not much evidence of PDD moving beyond agricultural goods. Its group buying model has proven popular in China, but until it moves into other verticals, it’s not competing with huge chunks of Alibaba’s business.</p><p>Tencent (OTCPK:TCEHY) competes with BABA in one limited way: it has a payment app. The Chinese government forced BABA and Tencent to accept each other’s payment apps last year. So the competition between these two companies for share of payments has indeed increased.</p><h2>BABA’s Financials</h2><p>Alibaba’s long-term financials are excellent. The most recent calendar year was a bit of a departure from the long term trend, but that could turn around.</p><p>According to Seeking Alpha Quant, BABA’s five year CAGR growth rates in revenue, earnings and cash flows are:</p><ul><li>Revenue: 42%.</li><li>Net income: 11.3%.</li><li>Diluted EPS: 9.8%.</li><li>Free cash flow: 13.66%.</li></ul><p>These are pretty solid metrics. They were all much higher prior to this year, but the 2021 Chinese tech crackdown caused last year’s numbers to suffer. BABA did take some new costs in 2021, like a $2.8 billion fine and a higher tax rate. However, the fine was non-recurring and the higher tax rate could be “outgrown” with enough quarters of strong revenue gains.</p><p>At any rate, Alibaba has more than enough financial strength to ride out a few lacklustre quarters. Its balance sheet is one of the strongest in the world, boasting eye-popping metrics like:</p><ul><li>$276 billion in assets.</li><li>$100 billion in liabilities.</li><li>$176 billion in equity.</li><li>$45 billion in cash.</li><li>About $20 billion in debt (calculated from $5.09 billion in bonds $14.85 billion in long term bank loans).</li><li>$105 billion in current assets.</li><li>$64 billion in current liabilities.</li><li>A 0.2 debt to equity ratio.</li><li>A 1.64 current ratio.</li></ul><p>So we have debt that is very low as a proportion of shareholder equity, and high liquidity. Even BABA’s cash and equivalents outstrip its long term debt! This suggests a very solid balance sheet and a second-to-none ability to ride out a crisis.</p><h2>Valuation</h2><p>Valuation has always been one of the pillars on which the BABA bull case has rested. BABA stock is very cheap by almost every multiple you can think of. Some of its most encouraging value metrics include:</p><ul><li>Adjusted P/E: 11.</li><li>Price/sales: 1.96.</li><li>Price/book: 1.67.</li><li>Price/operating cash flow: 9.37.</li></ul><p>All of these multiples are comparatively low for the tech sector. For comparison, Amazon (AMZN), the closest comparable U.S. company, has a 46 adjusted P/E ratio.</p><p>BABA’s GAAP P/E ratio (25) is a little high, but the most recent quarter included large unrealized losses on the company’s stock portfolio. Adjusted earnings and cash from operations are more closely related to the company’s operating performance, and not surprisingly, they were much higher than GAAP earnings. This isn’t just selective choice of non-GAAP measures either: operating cash flow is a GAAP metric and Alibaba reports in accordance with U.S. GAAP.</p><p>As we’ve seen, Alibaba is cheap, profitable, and has high historical growth. Certainly this stock has many things to recommend it, even after Charlie Munger rode off into the sunset. However, there are still risks and challenges to the bullish thesis on Alibaba stock. </p><p>These are real risks that investors will need to keep in mind. But on balance, Alibaba looks like a solid value play today. It’s still growing its revenue, its cloud business is inching toward profitability, and its valuation is cheaper than ever before. On the whole, it looks like a sweet deal – with or without Munger on board.</p></body></html>","collect":0,"html":"<!DOCTYPE html>\n<html>\n<head>\n<meta http-equiv=\"Content-Type\" content=\"text/html; charset=utf-8\" />\n<meta name=\"viewport\" content=\"width=device-width,initial-scale=1.0,minimum-scale=1.0,maximum-scale=1.0,user-scalable=no\"/>\n<meta name=\"format-detection\" content=\"telephone=no,email=no,address=no\" />\n<title>Alibaba: Munger Is Not The Thesis</title>\n<style type=\"text/css\">\na,abbr,acronym,address,applet,article,aside,audio,b,big,blockquote,body,canvas,caption,center,cite,code,dd,del,details,dfn,div,dl,dt,\nem,embed,fieldset,figcaption,figure,footer,form,h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6,header,hgroup,html,i,iframe,img,ins,kbd,label,legend,li,mark,menu,nav,\nobject,ol,output,p,pre,q,ruby,s,samp,section,small,span,strike,strong,sub,summary,sup,table,tbody,td,tfoot,th,thead,time,tr,tt,u,ul,var,video{ font:inherit;margin:0;padding:0;vertical-align:baseline;border:0 }\nbody{ font-size:16px; line-height:1.5; color:#999; background:transparent; }\n.wrapper{ overflow:hidden;word-break:break-all;padding:10px; }\nh1,h2{ font-weight:normal; line-height:1.35; margin-bottom:.6em; }\nh3,h4,h5,h6{ line-height:1.35; margin-bottom:1em; }\nh1{ font-size:24px; }\nh2{ font-size:20px; }\nh3{ font-size:18px; }\nh4{ font-size:16px; }\nh5{ font-size:14px; }\nh6{ font-size:12px; }\np,ul,ol,blockquote,dl,table{ margin:1.2em 0; }\nul,ol{ margin-left:2em; }\nul{ list-style:disc; }\nol{ list-style:decimal; }\nli,li p{ margin:10px 0;}\nimg{ max-width:100%;display:block;margin:0 auto 1em; }\nblockquote{ color:#B5B2B1; border-left:3px solid #aaa; padding:1em; }\nstrong,b{font-weight:bold;}\nem,i{font-style:italic;}\ntable{ width:100%;border-collapse:collapse;border-spacing:1px;margin:1em 0;font-size:.9em; }\nth,td{ padding:5px;text-align:left;border:1px solid #aaa; }\nth{ font-weight:bold;background:#5d5d5d; }\n.symbol-link{font-weight:bold;}\n/* header{ border-bottom:1px solid #494756; } */\n.title{ margin:0 0 8px;line-height:1.3;color:#ddd; }\n.meta {color:#5e5c6d;font-size:13px;margin:0 0 .5em; }\na{text-decoration:none; color:#2a4b87;}\n.meta .head { display: inline-block; overflow: hidden}\n.head .h-thumb { width: 30px; height: 30px; margin: 0; padding: 0; border-radius: 50%; float: left;}\n.head .h-content { margin: 0; padding: 0 0 0 9px; float: left;}\n.head .h-name {font-size: 13px; color: #eee; margin: 0;}\n.head .h-time {font-size: 11px; color: #7E829C; margin: 0;line-height: 11px;}\n.small {font-size: 12.5px; display: inline-block; transform: scale(0.9); -webkit-transform: scale(0.9); transform-origin: left; -webkit-transform-origin: left;}\n.smaller {font-size: 12.5px; display: inline-block; transform: scale(0.8); -webkit-transform: scale(0.8); transform-origin: left; -webkit-transform-origin: left;}\n.bt-text {font-size: 12px;margin: 1.5em 0 0 0}\n.bt-text p {margin: 0}\n</style>\n</head>\n<body>\n<div class=\"wrapper\">\n<header>\n<h2 class=\"title\">\nAlibaba: Munger Is Not The Thesis\n</h2>\n\n<h4 class=\"meta\">\n\n\n2022-04-18 13:16 GMT+8&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href=https://seekingalpha.com/article/4501707-alibaba-munger-not-thesis><strong>Seeking Alpha</strong></a>\n\n\n</h4>\n\n</header>\n<article>\n<div>\n<p>SummaryRecently the Daily Journal's 13F revealed that the company trimmed its Alibaba position by 50%.It isn't necessarily the case that former Chairman Charlie Munger sold due to weakening conviction...</p>\n\n<a href=\"https://seekingalpha.com/article/4501707-alibaba-munger-not-thesis\">Web Link</a>\n\n</div>\n\n\n</article>\n</div>\n</body>\n</html>\n","type":0,"thumbnail":"","relate_stocks":{"BABA":"阿里巴巴"},"source_url":"https://seekingalpha.com/article/4501707-alibaba-munger-not-thesis","is_english":true,"share_image_url":"https://static.laohu8.com/e9f99090a1c2ed51c021029395664489","article_id":"1110595663","content_text":"SummaryRecently the Daily Journal's 13F revealed that the company trimmed its Alibaba position by 50%.It isn't necessarily the case that former Chairman Charlie Munger sold due to weakening conviction on BABA stock itself.However, Munger IS out of the picture in one very real way: he is no longer the Daily Journal's Chairman.For this reason, Alibaba can no longer be considered a Munger copy trade.In this article, I develop a fundamentals-based thesis for those who cloned Munger and now aren't sure what to do.Charlie Munger’s Alibaba Group (NYSE:BABA) investment was the talk of the town last week. In its Q1 13F, the Daily Journal Corp (DJCO) revealed that it had sold 50% of its stake in the Chinese tech company, after several quarters of averaging down. It wasn’t immediately clear whether Munger himself made the decision to sell the shares, as he had stepped down just days before the end of the quarter. Tu To was elected to serve as the company’s CFO on March 22. She signed all of the company’s SEC filings from the 22nd onward.There are many reasons why Munger (or somebody else) might have chosen to sell Alibaba. Not all of them necessarily reflect lower conviction in the stock. It’s possible that DJCO converted some of its NYSE shares to Hong Kong shares, or sold to cover a margin loan. Munger hasn’t spoken on the matter publicly yet, nor have any other DJCO officers, so we don’t know.Charlie Munger is thought to have influenced many investors who bought BABA stock in 2021. He began buying the stock around $226, averaging down after that. Many other investors made similar moves. It was shortly after Munger’s first 13F featuring Alibaba that internet communities focused on BABA really started to take off. Some were founded just days after the release.Naturally, Munger’s apparent sale made a big splash. BABA has always been at least partially a Munger clone trade, and it appears that Munger’s conviction in the stock has diminished. Shortly after the 13F was released, investors took to Twitter offering opinions and running polls asking others about what had happened.We may never know. But it doesn’t matter, because BABA ceased being a Munger clone trade long before the 13F came out. When Munger stepped down as Chairman of the Daily Journal, it created ambiguity as to the actual level of influence he will exercise over the firm’s portfolio going forward. The DJCO portfolio is no longer a Munger portfolio–or at least, not 100% a Munger portfolio. For this reason, investors will need a better thesis than “clone Munger because he is good.” In this article, I will attempt to advance such a thesis, based on valuation, competitive position and China's economic growth. First, though, let’s examine why it will not be possible to clone “Munger’s” BABA trades in future quarters.Why Munger Can’t be Cloned AnymoreThere are two reasons why it is impossible to clone Munger’s future BABA trades:Munger is no longer Chairman of the Daily Journal.Some of DJCO’s potential trades are impossible to confirm.The first of these is easy enough to explain. When Munger was Chairman of the Daily Journal, he managed the investment portfolio. Now that he is no longer Chairman, he simply has the duties of a director. Munger could still volunteer to manage the portfolio, but the ultimate decisions would fall on Steven Myhill-Jones, the new CEO, or Tu To, the new CFO. The SEC filings announcing these new hires didn't say who'd manage the portfolio.The second reason why Munger can’t be cloned now is because some of his potential trades wouldn’t have to be disclosed. Munger is well known for not telling investors more than he has to. If he simply converted some of his NYSE ADRs to Hong Kong shares, as some think he did, then he is no longer under the obligation to report all of his holdings. As the SEC website states, you don’t have to disclose foreign listed shares in a 13F, even if your position is massive.What all this means is that cloning Munger’s BABA trades won’t be possible going forward. For those whose BABA position was little more than a Munger copycat, that has got to sting. Fortunately, the fundamentals-based thesis on the stock is not that difficult to comprehend, and can be explained in terms of four basic principles. In the next section I will explain that case in detail.The Bullish Thesis on BABAA strong bullish thesis on BABA can be built on four pillars:China’s economy.BABA’s competitive position.Financial health.Valuation.I’ll look at each of these factors one by one, starting with China’s economyChina’s EconomyDespite the negative headlines you’re seeing these days, China’s economy is very strong. Its GDP growth was 8.1% in 2021. GDP has grown at 7.4% CAGR over 10 years. In 2020, when many countries entered recessions, China’s growth merely decelerated to 2.2%. With all of this growth, you might think that China is pumping itself full of debt. But think again! At 66.8, China’s government debt as a percentage of GDP is lower than that of the U.S., Canada, and the Eurozone. You may have heard stories about China’s “debt problem,” and claims of a 250% debt to GDP ratio. The figure is correct but it includes all debt, government and private. China’s government debt–the kind used to pay for fiscal stimulus–is low as a percentage of GDP. So China is growing very quickly and is fiscally sound enough to stimulate its economy should stimulation become necessary.BABA’s Competitive PositionAs we’ve seen, China has a high growth economy–the kind of economy that a company wants to operate in. That’s a great start but we still need to know about BABA’s competitive position.As an eCommerce company, BABA has few rivals of similar scale. JD.com (JD) technically does more revenue than BABA does, but it has much smaller margins. It could beat Alibaba on scale but probably not on profitability. JD holds and sells inventory. It’s hard to beat a “platform” company like BABA when you have inventory costs. It eats into margins.Pinduoduo (PDD) has been cited as a potential competitor to BABA but there’s just not much evidence of PDD moving beyond agricultural goods. Its group buying model has proven popular in China, but until it moves into other verticals, it’s not competing with huge chunks of Alibaba’s business.Tencent (OTCPK:TCEHY) competes with BABA in one limited way: it has a payment app. The Chinese government forced BABA and Tencent to accept each other’s payment apps last year. So the competition between these two companies for share of payments has indeed increased.BABA’s FinancialsAlibaba’s long-term financials are excellent. The most recent calendar year was a bit of a departure from the long term trend, but that could turn around.According to Seeking Alpha Quant, BABA’s five year CAGR growth rates in revenue, earnings and cash flows are:Revenue: 42%.Net income: 11.3%.Diluted EPS: 9.8%.Free cash flow: 13.66%.These are pretty solid metrics. They were all much higher prior to this year, but the 2021 Chinese tech crackdown caused last year’s numbers to suffer. BABA did take some new costs in 2021, like a $2.8 billion fine and a higher tax rate. However, the fine was non-recurring and the higher tax rate could be “outgrown” with enough quarters of strong revenue gains.At any rate, Alibaba has more than enough financial strength to ride out a few lacklustre quarters. Its balance sheet is one of the strongest in the world, boasting eye-popping metrics like:$276 billion in assets.$100 billion in liabilities.$176 billion in equity.$45 billion in cash.About $20 billion in debt (calculated from $5.09 billion in bonds $14.85 billion in long term bank loans).$105 billion in current assets.$64 billion in current liabilities.A 0.2 debt to equity ratio.A 1.64 current ratio.So we have debt that is very low as a proportion of shareholder equity, and high liquidity. Even BABA’s cash and equivalents outstrip its long term debt! This suggests a very solid balance sheet and a second-to-none ability to ride out a crisis.ValuationValuation has always been one of the pillars on which the BABA bull case has rested. BABA stock is very cheap by almost every multiple you can think of. Some of its most encouraging value metrics include:Adjusted P/E: 11.Price/sales: 1.96.Price/book: 1.67.Price/operating cash flow: 9.37.All of these multiples are comparatively low for the tech sector. For comparison, Amazon (AMZN), the closest comparable U.S. company, has a 46 adjusted P/E ratio.BABA’s GAAP P/E ratio (25) is a little high, but the most recent quarter included large unrealized losses on the company’s stock portfolio. Adjusted earnings and cash from operations are more closely related to the company’s operating performance, and not surprisingly, they were much higher than GAAP earnings. This isn’t just selective choice of non-GAAP measures either: operating cash flow is a GAAP metric and Alibaba reports in accordance with U.S. GAAP.As we’ve seen, Alibaba is cheap, profitable, and has high historical growth. Certainly this stock has many things to recommend it, even after Charlie Munger rode off into the sunset. However, there are still risks and challenges to the bullish thesis on Alibaba stock. These are real risks that investors will need to keep in mind. But on balance, Alibaba looks like a solid value play today. It’s still growing its revenue, its cloud business is inching toward profitability, and its valuation is cheaper than ever before. On the whole, it looks like a sweet deal – with or without Munger on board.","news_type":1},"isVote":1,"likeStatus":false,"favoriteStatus":false,"reportStatus":false,"tweetType":1,"langContent":"EN"},{"id":9081435260,"gmtCreate":1650263294575,"gmtModify":1676534681915,"author":{"id":"4092970777728640","authorId":"4092970777728640","name":"SCLIEW","avatar":"https://static.tigerbbs.com/5da553e4d3d35db75d1caae023ca8a03","vip":1,"crmLevel":2,"crmLevelSwitch":0},"htmlText":"666","listText":"666","text":"666","images":[],"top":1,"highlighted":1,"essential":1,"paper":1,"likeSize":1,"commentSize":0,"repostSize":0,"link":"https://ttm.financial/post/9081435260","repostId":1110595663,"repostType":4,"repost":{"id":"1110595663","pubTimestamp":1650258996,"share":"https://www.laohu8.com/m/news/1110595663?lang=&edition=full","pubTime":"2022-04-18 13:16","market":"us","language":"en","title":"Alibaba: Munger Is Not The Thesis","url":"https://stock-news.laohu8.com/highlight/detail?id=1110595663","media":"Seeking Alpha","summary":"SummaryRecently the Daily Journal's 13F revealed that the company trimmed its Alibaba position by 50%.It isn't necessarily the case that former Chairman Charlie Munger sold due to weakening conviction","content":"<html><head></head><body><p>Summary</p><ul><li>Recently the Daily Journal&#39;s 13F revealed that the company trimmed its Alibaba position by 50%.</li><li>It isn&#39;t necessarily the case that former Chairman Charlie Munger sold due to weakening conviction on BABA stock itself.</li><li>However, Munger IS out of the picture in one very real way: he is no longer the Daily Journal&#39;s Chairman.</li><li>For this reason, Alibaba can no longer be considered a Munger copy trade.</li><li>In this article, I develop a fundamentals-based thesis for those who cloned Munger and now aren&#39;t sure what to do.</li></ul><p>Charlie Munger’s Alibaba Group (NYSE:BABA) investment was the talk of the town last week. In its Q1 13F, the Daily Journal Corp (DJCO) revealed that it had sold 50% of its stake in the Chinese tech company, after several quarters of averaging down. It wasn’t immediately clear whether Munger himself made the decision to sell the shares, as he had stepped down just days before the end of the quarter. Tu To was elected to serve as the company’s CFO on March 22. She signed all of the company’s SEC filings from the 22nd onward.</p><p>There are many reasons why Munger (or somebody else) might have chosen to sell Alibaba. Not all of them necessarily reflect lower conviction in the stock. It’s possible that DJCO converted some of its NYSE shares to Hong Kong shares, or sold to cover a margin loan. Munger hasn’t spoken on the matter publicly yet, nor have any other DJCO officers, so we don’t know.</p><p>Charlie Munger is thought to have influenced many investors who bought BABA stock in 2021. He began buying the stock around $226, averaging down after that. Many other investors made similar moves. It was shortly after Munger’s first 13F featuring Alibaba that internet communities focused on BABA really started to take off. Some were founded just days after the release.</p><p>Naturally, Munger’s apparent sale made a big splash. BABA has always been at least partially a Munger clone trade, and it appears that Munger’s conviction in the stock has diminished. Shortly after the 13F was released, investors took to Twitter offering opinions and running polls asking others about what had happened.</p><p>We may never know. But it doesn’t matter, because BABA ceased being a Munger clone trade long before the 13F came out. When Munger stepped down as Chairman of the Daily Journal, it created ambiguity as to the actual level of influence he will exercise over the firm’s portfolio going forward. The DJCO portfolio is no longer a Munger portfolio–or at least, not 100% a Munger portfolio. For this reason, investors will need a better thesis than “clone Munger because he is good.” In this article, I will attempt to advance such a thesis, based on valuation, competitive position and China&#39;s economic growth. First, though, let’s examine why it will not be possible to clone “Munger’s” BABA trades in future quarters.</p><p>Why Munger Can’t be Cloned Anymore</p><p>There are two reasons why it is impossible to clone Munger’s future BABA trades:</p><ol><li>Munger is no longer Chairman of the Daily Journal.</li><li>Some of DJCO’s potential trades are impossible to confirm.</li></ol><p>The first of these is easy enough to explain. When Munger was Chairman of the Daily Journal, he managed the investment portfolio. Now that he is no longer Chairman, he simply has the duties of a director. Munger could still volunteer to manage the portfolio, but the ultimate decisions would fall on Steven Myhill-Jones, the new CEO, or Tu To, the new CFO. The SEC filings announcing these new hires didn&#39;t say who&#39;d manage the portfolio.</p><p>The second reason why Munger can’t be cloned now is because some of his potential trades wouldn’t have to be disclosed. Munger is well known for not telling investors more than he has to. If he simply converted some of his NYSE ADRs to Hong Kong shares, as some think he did, then he is no longer under the obligation to report all of his holdings. As the SEC website states, you don’t have to disclose foreign listed shares in a 13F, even if your position is massive.</p><p><img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/5852b29d02869d997a4c8ce719caa59f\" tg-width=\"575\" tg-height=\"191\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\" width=\"100%\" height=\"auto\"/></p><p>What all this means is that cloning Munger’s BABA trades won’t be possible going forward. For those whose BABA position was little more than a Munger copycat, that has got to sting. Fortunately, the fundamentals-based thesis on the stock is not that difficult to comprehend, and can be explained in terms of four basic principles. In the next section I will explain that case in detail.</p><h2>The Bullish Thesis on BABA</h2><p>A strong bullish thesis on BABA can be built on four pillars:</p><ul><li>China’s economy.</li><li>BABA’s competitive position.</li><li>Financial health.</li><li>Valuation.</li></ul><p>I’ll look at each of these factors one by one, starting with China’s economy</p><h2>China’s Economy</h2><p>Despite the negative headlines you’re seeing these days, China’s economy is very strong. Its GDP growth was 8.1% in 2021. GDP has grown at 7.4% CAGR over 10 years. In 2020, when many countries entered recessions, China’s growth merely decelerated to 2.2%. With all of this growth, you might think that China is pumping itself full of debt. But think again! At 66.8, China’s government debt as a percentage of GDP is lower than that of the U.S., Canada, and the Eurozone. You may have heard stories about China’s “debt problem,” and claims of a 250% debt to GDP ratio. The figure is correct but it includes all debt, government and private. China’s government debt–the kind used to pay for fiscal stimulus–is low as a percentage of GDP. So China is growing very quickly and is fiscally sound enough to stimulate its economy should stimulation become necessary.</p><h2>BABA’s Competitive Position</h2><p>As we’ve seen, China has a high growth economy–the kind of economy that a company wants to operate in. That’s a great start but we still need to know about BABA’s competitive position.</p><p>As an eCommerce company, BABA has few rivals of similar scale. JD.com (JD) technically does more revenue than BABA does, but it has much smaller margins. It could beat Alibaba on scale but probably not on profitability. JD holds and sells inventory. It’s hard to beat a “platform” company like BABA when you have inventory costs. It eats into margins.</p><p>Pinduoduo (PDD) has been cited as a potential competitor to BABA but there’s just not much evidence of PDD moving beyond agricultural goods. Its group buying model has proven popular in China, but until it moves into other verticals, it’s not competing with huge chunks of Alibaba’s business.</p><p>Tencent (OTCPK:TCEHY) competes with BABA in one limited way: it has a payment app. The Chinese government forced BABA and Tencent to accept each other’s payment apps last year. So the competition between these two companies for share of payments has indeed increased.</p><h2>BABA’s Financials</h2><p>Alibaba’s long-term financials are excellent. The most recent calendar year was a bit of a departure from the long term trend, but that could turn around.</p><p>According to Seeking Alpha Quant, BABA’s five year CAGR growth rates in revenue, earnings and cash flows are:</p><ul><li>Revenue: 42%.</li><li>Net income: 11.3%.</li><li>Diluted EPS: 9.8%.</li><li>Free cash flow: 13.66%.</li></ul><p>These are pretty solid metrics. They were all much higher prior to this year, but the 2021 Chinese tech crackdown caused last year’s numbers to suffer. BABA did take some new costs in 2021, like a $2.8 billion fine and a higher tax rate. However, the fine was non-recurring and the higher tax rate could be “outgrown” with enough quarters of strong revenue gains.</p><p>At any rate, Alibaba has more than enough financial strength to ride out a few lacklustre quarters. Its balance sheet is one of the strongest in the world, boasting eye-popping metrics like:</p><ul><li>$276 billion in assets.</li><li>$100 billion in liabilities.</li><li>$176 billion in equity.</li><li>$45 billion in cash.</li><li>About $20 billion in debt (calculated from $5.09 billion in bonds $14.85 billion in long term bank loans).</li><li>$105 billion in current assets.</li><li>$64 billion in current liabilities.</li><li>A 0.2 debt to equity ratio.</li><li>A 1.64 current ratio.</li></ul><p>So we have debt that is very low as a proportion of shareholder equity, and high liquidity. Even BABA’s cash and equivalents outstrip its long term debt! This suggests a very solid balance sheet and a second-to-none ability to ride out a crisis.</p><h2>Valuation</h2><p>Valuation has always been one of the pillars on which the BABA bull case has rested. BABA stock is very cheap by almost every multiple you can think of. Some of its most encouraging value metrics include:</p><ul><li>Adjusted P/E: 11.</li><li>Price/sales: 1.96.</li><li>Price/book: 1.67.</li><li>Price/operating cash flow: 9.37.</li></ul><p>All of these multiples are comparatively low for the tech sector. For comparison, Amazon (AMZN), the closest comparable U.S. company, has a 46 adjusted P/E ratio.</p><p>BABA’s GAAP P/E ratio (25) is a little high, but the most recent quarter included large unrealized losses on the company’s stock portfolio. Adjusted earnings and cash from operations are more closely related to the company’s operating performance, and not surprisingly, they were much higher than GAAP earnings. This isn’t just selective choice of non-GAAP measures either: operating cash flow is a GAAP metric and Alibaba reports in accordance with U.S. GAAP.</p><p>As we’ve seen, Alibaba is cheap, profitable, and has high historical growth. Certainly this stock has many things to recommend it, even after Charlie Munger rode off into the sunset. However, there are still risks and challenges to the bullish thesis on Alibaba stock. </p><p>These are real risks that investors will need to keep in mind. But on balance, Alibaba looks like a solid value play today. It’s still growing its revenue, its cloud business is inching toward profitability, and its valuation is cheaper than ever before. On the whole, it looks like a sweet deal – with or without Munger on board.</p></body></html>","collect":0,"html":"<!DOCTYPE html>\n<html>\n<head>\n<meta http-equiv=\"Content-Type\" content=\"text/html; charset=utf-8\" />\n<meta name=\"viewport\" content=\"width=device-width,initial-scale=1.0,minimum-scale=1.0,maximum-scale=1.0,user-scalable=no\"/>\n<meta name=\"format-detection\" content=\"telephone=no,email=no,address=no\" />\n<title>Alibaba: Munger Is Not The Thesis</title>\n<style type=\"text/css\">\na,abbr,acronym,address,applet,article,aside,audio,b,big,blockquote,body,canvas,caption,center,cite,code,dd,del,details,dfn,div,dl,dt,\nem,embed,fieldset,figcaption,figure,footer,form,h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6,header,hgroup,html,i,iframe,img,ins,kbd,label,legend,li,mark,menu,nav,\nobject,ol,output,p,pre,q,ruby,s,samp,section,small,span,strike,strong,sub,summary,sup,table,tbody,td,tfoot,th,thead,time,tr,tt,u,ul,var,video{ font:inherit;margin:0;padding:0;vertical-align:baseline;border:0 }\nbody{ font-size:16px; line-height:1.5; color:#999; background:transparent; }\n.wrapper{ overflow:hidden;word-break:break-all;padding:10px; }\nh1,h2{ font-weight:normal; line-height:1.35; margin-bottom:.6em; }\nh3,h4,h5,h6{ line-height:1.35; margin-bottom:1em; }\nh1{ font-size:24px; }\nh2{ font-size:20px; }\nh3{ font-size:18px; }\nh4{ font-size:16px; }\nh5{ font-size:14px; }\nh6{ font-size:12px; }\np,ul,ol,blockquote,dl,table{ margin:1.2em 0; }\nul,ol{ margin-left:2em; }\nul{ list-style:disc; }\nol{ list-style:decimal; }\nli,li p{ margin:10px 0;}\nimg{ max-width:100%;display:block;margin:0 auto 1em; }\nblockquote{ color:#B5B2B1; border-left:3px solid #aaa; padding:1em; }\nstrong,b{font-weight:bold;}\nem,i{font-style:italic;}\ntable{ width:100%;border-collapse:collapse;border-spacing:1px;margin:1em 0;font-size:.9em; }\nth,td{ padding:5px;text-align:left;border:1px solid #aaa; }\nth{ font-weight:bold;background:#5d5d5d; }\n.symbol-link{font-weight:bold;}\n/* header{ border-bottom:1px solid #494756; } */\n.title{ margin:0 0 8px;line-height:1.3;color:#ddd; }\n.meta {color:#5e5c6d;font-size:13px;margin:0 0 .5em; }\na{text-decoration:none; color:#2a4b87;}\n.meta .head { display: inline-block; overflow: hidden}\n.head .h-thumb { width: 30px; height: 30px; margin: 0; padding: 0; border-radius: 50%; float: left;}\n.head .h-content { margin: 0; padding: 0 0 0 9px; float: left;}\n.head .h-name {font-size: 13px; color: #eee; margin: 0;}\n.head .h-time {font-size: 11px; color: #7E829C; margin: 0;line-height: 11px;}\n.small {font-size: 12.5px; display: inline-block; transform: scale(0.9); -webkit-transform: scale(0.9); transform-origin: left; -webkit-transform-origin: left;}\n.smaller {font-size: 12.5px; display: inline-block; transform: scale(0.8); -webkit-transform: scale(0.8); transform-origin: left; -webkit-transform-origin: left;}\n.bt-text {font-size: 12px;margin: 1.5em 0 0 0}\n.bt-text p {margin: 0}\n</style>\n</head>\n<body>\n<div class=\"wrapper\">\n<header>\n<h2 class=\"title\">\nAlibaba: Munger Is Not The Thesis\n</h2>\n\n<h4 class=\"meta\">\n\n\n2022-04-18 13:16 GMT+8&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href=https://seekingalpha.com/article/4501707-alibaba-munger-not-thesis><strong>Seeking Alpha</strong></a>\n\n\n</h4>\n\n</header>\n<article>\n<div>\n<p>SummaryRecently the Daily Journal's 13F revealed that the company trimmed its Alibaba position by 50%.It isn't necessarily the case that former Chairman Charlie Munger sold due to weakening conviction...</p>\n\n<a href=\"https://seekingalpha.com/article/4501707-alibaba-munger-not-thesis\">Web Link</a>\n\n</div>\n\n\n</article>\n</div>\n</body>\n</html>\n","type":0,"thumbnail":"","relate_stocks":{"BABA":"阿里巴巴"},"source_url":"https://seekingalpha.com/article/4501707-alibaba-munger-not-thesis","is_english":true,"share_image_url":"https://static.laohu8.com/e9f99090a1c2ed51c021029395664489","article_id":"1110595663","content_text":"SummaryRecently the Daily Journal's 13F revealed that the company trimmed its Alibaba position by 50%.It isn't necessarily the case that former Chairman Charlie Munger sold due to weakening conviction on BABA stock itself.However, Munger IS out of the picture in one very real way: he is no longer the Daily Journal's Chairman.For this reason, Alibaba can no longer be considered a Munger copy trade.In this article, I develop a fundamentals-based thesis for those who cloned Munger and now aren't sure what to do.Charlie Munger’s Alibaba Group (NYSE:BABA) investment was the talk of the town last week. In its Q1 13F, the Daily Journal Corp (DJCO) revealed that it had sold 50% of its stake in the Chinese tech company, after several quarters of averaging down. It wasn’t immediately clear whether Munger himself made the decision to sell the shares, as he had stepped down just days before the end of the quarter. Tu To was elected to serve as the company’s CFO on March 22. She signed all of the company’s SEC filings from the 22nd onward.There are many reasons why Munger (or somebody else) might have chosen to sell Alibaba. Not all of them necessarily reflect lower conviction in the stock. It’s possible that DJCO converted some of its NYSE shares to Hong Kong shares, or sold to cover a margin loan. Munger hasn’t spoken on the matter publicly yet, nor have any other DJCO officers, so we don’t know.Charlie Munger is thought to have influenced many investors who bought BABA stock in 2021. He began buying the stock around $226, averaging down after that. Many other investors made similar moves. It was shortly after Munger’s first 13F featuring Alibaba that internet communities focused on BABA really started to take off. Some were founded just days after the release.Naturally, Munger’s apparent sale made a big splash. BABA has always been at least partially a Munger clone trade, and it appears that Munger’s conviction in the stock has diminished. Shortly after the 13F was released, investors took to Twitter offering opinions and running polls asking others about what had happened.We may never know. But it doesn’t matter, because BABA ceased being a Munger clone trade long before the 13F came out. When Munger stepped down as Chairman of the Daily Journal, it created ambiguity as to the actual level of influence he will exercise over the firm’s portfolio going forward. The DJCO portfolio is no longer a Munger portfolio–or at least, not 100% a Munger portfolio. For this reason, investors will need a better thesis than “clone Munger because he is good.” In this article, I will attempt to advance such a thesis, based on valuation, competitive position and China's economic growth. First, though, let’s examine why it will not be possible to clone “Munger’s” BABA trades in future quarters.Why Munger Can’t be Cloned AnymoreThere are two reasons why it is impossible to clone Munger’s future BABA trades:Munger is no longer Chairman of the Daily Journal.Some of DJCO’s potential trades are impossible to confirm.The first of these is easy enough to explain. When Munger was Chairman of the Daily Journal, he managed the investment portfolio. Now that he is no longer Chairman, he simply has the duties of a director. Munger could still volunteer to manage the portfolio, but the ultimate decisions would fall on Steven Myhill-Jones, the new CEO, or Tu To, the new CFO. The SEC filings announcing these new hires didn't say who'd manage the portfolio.The second reason why Munger can’t be cloned now is because some of his potential trades wouldn’t have to be disclosed. Munger is well known for not telling investors more than he has to. If he simply converted some of his NYSE ADRs to Hong Kong shares, as some think he did, then he is no longer under the obligation to report all of his holdings. As the SEC website states, you don’t have to disclose foreign listed shares in a 13F, even if your position is massive.What all this means is that cloning Munger’s BABA trades won’t be possible going forward. For those whose BABA position was little more than a Munger copycat, that has got to sting. Fortunately, the fundamentals-based thesis on the stock is not that difficult to comprehend, and can be explained in terms of four basic principles. In the next section I will explain that case in detail.The Bullish Thesis on BABAA strong bullish thesis on BABA can be built on four pillars:China’s economy.BABA’s competitive position.Financial health.Valuation.I’ll look at each of these factors one by one, starting with China’s economyChina’s EconomyDespite the negative headlines you’re seeing these days, China’s economy is very strong. Its GDP growth was 8.1% in 2021. GDP has grown at 7.4% CAGR over 10 years. In 2020, when many countries entered recessions, China’s growth merely decelerated to 2.2%. With all of this growth, you might think that China is pumping itself full of debt. But think again! At 66.8, China’s government debt as a percentage of GDP is lower than that of the U.S., Canada, and the Eurozone. You may have heard stories about China’s “debt problem,” and claims of a 250% debt to GDP ratio. The figure is correct but it includes all debt, government and private. China’s government debt–the kind used to pay for fiscal stimulus–is low as a percentage of GDP. So China is growing very quickly and is fiscally sound enough to stimulate its economy should stimulation become necessary.BABA’s Competitive PositionAs we’ve seen, China has a high growth economy–the kind of economy that a company wants to operate in. That’s a great start but we still need to know about BABA’s competitive position.As an eCommerce company, BABA has few rivals of similar scale. JD.com (JD) technically does more revenue than BABA does, but it has much smaller margins. It could beat Alibaba on scale but probably not on profitability. JD holds and sells inventory. It’s hard to beat a “platform” company like BABA when you have inventory costs. It eats into margins.Pinduoduo (PDD) has been cited as a potential competitor to BABA but there’s just not much evidence of PDD moving beyond agricultural goods. Its group buying model has proven popular in China, but until it moves into other verticals, it’s not competing with huge chunks of Alibaba’s business.Tencent (OTCPK:TCEHY) competes with BABA in one limited way: it has a payment app. The Chinese government forced BABA and Tencent to accept each other’s payment apps last year. So the competition between these two companies for share of payments has indeed increased.BABA’s FinancialsAlibaba’s long-term financials are excellent. The most recent calendar year was a bit of a departure from the long term trend, but that could turn around.According to Seeking Alpha Quant, BABA’s five year CAGR growth rates in revenue, earnings and cash flows are:Revenue: 42%.Net income: 11.3%.Diluted EPS: 9.8%.Free cash flow: 13.66%.These are pretty solid metrics. They were all much higher prior to this year, but the 2021 Chinese tech crackdown caused last year’s numbers to suffer. BABA did take some new costs in 2021, like a $2.8 billion fine and a higher tax rate. However, the fine was non-recurring and the higher tax rate could be “outgrown” with enough quarters of strong revenue gains.At any rate, Alibaba has more than enough financial strength to ride out a few lacklustre quarters. Its balance sheet is one of the strongest in the world, boasting eye-popping metrics like:$276 billion in assets.$100 billion in liabilities.$176 billion in equity.$45 billion in cash.About $20 billion in debt (calculated from $5.09 billion in bonds $14.85 billion in long term bank loans).$105 billion in current assets.$64 billion in current liabilities.A 0.2 debt to equity ratio.A 1.64 current ratio.So we have debt that is very low as a proportion of shareholder equity, and high liquidity. Even BABA’s cash and equivalents outstrip its long term debt! This suggests a very solid balance sheet and a second-to-none ability to ride out a crisis.ValuationValuation has always been one of the pillars on which the BABA bull case has rested. BABA stock is very cheap by almost every multiple you can think of. Some of its most encouraging value metrics include:Adjusted P/E: 11.Price/sales: 1.96.Price/book: 1.67.Price/operating cash flow: 9.37.All of these multiples are comparatively low for the tech sector. For comparison, Amazon (AMZN), the closest comparable U.S. company, has a 46 adjusted P/E ratio.BABA’s GAAP P/E ratio (25) is a little high, but the most recent quarter included large unrealized losses on the company’s stock portfolio. Adjusted earnings and cash from operations are more closely related to the company’s operating performance, and not surprisingly, they were much higher than GAAP earnings. This isn’t just selective choice of non-GAAP measures either: operating cash flow is a GAAP metric and Alibaba reports in accordance with U.S. GAAP.As we’ve seen, Alibaba is cheap, profitable, and has high historical growth. Certainly this stock has many things to recommend it, even after Charlie Munger rode off into the sunset. However, there are still risks and challenges to the bullish thesis on Alibaba stock. These are real risks that investors will need to keep in mind. But on balance, Alibaba looks like a solid value play today. It’s still growing its revenue, its cloud business is inching toward profitability, and its valuation is cheaper than ever before. On the whole, it looks like a sweet deal – with or without Munger on board.","news_type":1},"isVote":1,"likeStatus":false,"favoriteStatus":false,"reportStatus":false,"tweetType":1,"langContent":"EN"},{"id":9081430938,"gmtCreate":1650262140412,"gmtModify":1676534681816,"author":{"id":"4097767435236930","authorId":"4097767435236930","name":"Aivern","avatar":"https://static.tigerbbs.com/3827d6c7271c872fcc616eaa9b4f7f54","vip":1,"crmLevel":3,"crmLevelSwitch":1},"htmlText":"Copy trades are a terrible way to invest. You'd do better DCAing the s&amp;p500.As for company fundamentals, nobody is disputing that at all.The main issue is the political risk - which can scupper they company regardless of how sound its balance sheet is.And there is no metric or data-derived analysis that can predict that factor.So why bother when there are so many other fantastic opportunities?","listText":"Copy trades are a terrible way to invest. You'd do better DCAing the s&amp;p500.As for company fundamentals, nobody is disputing that at all.The main issue is the political risk - which can scupper they company regardless of how sound its balance sheet is.And there is no metric or data-derived analysis that can predict that factor.So why bother when there are so many other fantastic opportunities?","text":"Copy trades are a terrible way to invest. You'd do better DCAing the s&p500.As for company fundamentals, nobody is disputing that at all.The main issue is the political risk - which can scupper they company regardless of how sound its balance sheet is.And there is no metric or data-derived analysis that can predict that factor.So why bother when there are so many other fantastic opportunities?","images":[],"top":1,"highlighted":1,"essential":1,"paper":1,"likeSize":7,"commentSize":0,"repostSize":0,"link":"https://ttm.financial/post/9081430938","repostId":1110595663,"repostType":2,"repost":{"id":"1110595663","pubTimestamp":1650258996,"share":"https://www.laohu8.com/m/news/1110595663?lang=&edition=full","pubTime":"2022-04-18 13:16","market":"us","language":"en","title":"Alibaba: Munger Is Not The Thesis","url":"https://stock-news.laohu8.com/highlight/detail?id=1110595663","media":"Seeking Alpha","summary":"SummaryRecently the Daily Journal's 13F revealed that the company trimmed its Alibaba position by 50%.It isn't necessarily the case that former Chairman Charlie Munger sold due to weakening conviction","content":"<html><head></head><body><p>Summary</p><ul><li>Recently the Daily Journal&#39;s 13F revealed that the company trimmed its Alibaba position by 50%.</li><li>It isn&#39;t necessarily the case that former Chairman Charlie Munger sold due to weakening conviction on BABA stock itself.</li><li>However, Munger IS out of the picture in one very real way: he is no longer the Daily Journal&#39;s Chairman.</li><li>For this reason, Alibaba can no longer be considered a Munger copy trade.</li><li>In this article, I develop a fundamentals-based thesis for those who cloned Munger and now aren&#39;t sure what to do.</li></ul><p>Charlie Munger’s Alibaba Group (NYSE:BABA) investment was the talk of the town last week. In its Q1 13F, the Daily Journal Corp (DJCO) revealed that it had sold 50% of its stake in the Chinese tech company, after several quarters of averaging down. It wasn’t immediately clear whether Munger himself made the decision to sell the shares, as he had stepped down just days before the end of the quarter. Tu To was elected to serve as the company’s CFO on March 22. She signed all of the company’s SEC filings from the 22nd onward.</p><p>There are many reasons why Munger (or somebody else) might have chosen to sell Alibaba. Not all of them necessarily reflect lower conviction in the stock. It’s possible that DJCO converted some of its NYSE shares to Hong Kong shares, or sold to cover a margin loan. Munger hasn’t spoken on the matter publicly yet, nor have any other DJCO officers, so we don’t know.</p><p>Charlie Munger is thought to have influenced many investors who bought BABA stock in 2021. He began buying the stock around $226, averaging down after that. Many other investors made similar moves. It was shortly after Munger’s first 13F featuring Alibaba that internet communities focused on BABA really started to take off. Some were founded just days after the release.</p><p>Naturally, Munger’s apparent sale made a big splash. BABA has always been at least partially a Munger clone trade, and it appears that Munger’s conviction in the stock has diminished. Shortly after the 13F was released, investors took to Twitter offering opinions and running polls asking others about what had happened.</p><p>We may never know. But it doesn’t matter, because BABA ceased being a Munger clone trade long before the 13F came out. When Munger stepped down as Chairman of the Daily Journal, it created ambiguity as to the actual level of influence he will exercise over the firm’s portfolio going forward. The DJCO portfolio is no longer a Munger portfolio–or at least, not 100% a Munger portfolio. For this reason, investors will need a better thesis than “clone Munger because he is good.” In this article, I will attempt to advance such a thesis, based on valuation, competitive position and China&#39;s economic growth. First, though, let’s examine why it will not be possible to clone “Munger’s” BABA trades in future quarters.</p><p>Why Munger Can’t be Cloned Anymore</p><p>There are two reasons why it is impossible to clone Munger’s future BABA trades:</p><ol><li>Munger is no longer Chairman of the Daily Journal.</li><li>Some of DJCO’s potential trades are impossible to confirm.</li></ol><p>The first of these is easy enough to explain. When Munger was Chairman of the Daily Journal, he managed the investment portfolio. Now that he is no longer Chairman, he simply has the duties of a director. Munger could still volunteer to manage the portfolio, but the ultimate decisions would fall on Steven Myhill-Jones, the new CEO, or Tu To, the new CFO. The SEC filings announcing these new hires didn&#39;t say who&#39;d manage the portfolio.</p><p>The second reason why Munger can’t be cloned now is because some of his potential trades wouldn’t have to be disclosed. Munger is well known for not telling investors more than he has to. If he simply converted some of his NYSE ADRs to Hong Kong shares, as some think he did, then he is no longer under the obligation to report all of his holdings. As the SEC website states, you don’t have to disclose foreign listed shares in a 13F, even if your position is massive.</p><p><img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/5852b29d02869d997a4c8ce719caa59f\" tg-width=\"575\" tg-height=\"191\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\" width=\"100%\" height=\"auto\"/></p><p>What all this means is that cloning Munger’s BABA trades won’t be possible going forward. For those whose BABA position was little more than a Munger copycat, that has got to sting. Fortunately, the fundamentals-based thesis on the stock is not that difficult to comprehend, and can be explained in terms of four basic principles. In the next section I will explain that case in detail.</p><h2>The Bullish Thesis on BABA</h2><p>A strong bullish thesis on BABA can be built on four pillars:</p><ul><li>China’s economy.</li><li>BABA’s competitive position.</li><li>Financial health.</li><li>Valuation.</li></ul><p>I’ll look at each of these factors one by one, starting with China’s economy</p><h2>China’s Economy</h2><p>Despite the negative headlines you’re seeing these days, China’s economy is very strong. Its GDP growth was 8.1% in 2021. GDP has grown at 7.4% CAGR over 10 years. In 2020, when many countries entered recessions, China’s growth merely decelerated to 2.2%. With all of this growth, you might think that China is pumping itself full of debt. But think again! At 66.8, China’s government debt as a percentage of GDP is lower than that of the U.S., Canada, and the Eurozone. You may have heard stories about China’s “debt problem,” and claims of a 250% debt to GDP ratio. The figure is correct but it includes all debt, government and private. China’s government debt–the kind used to pay for fiscal stimulus–is low as a percentage of GDP. So China is growing very quickly and is fiscally sound enough to stimulate its economy should stimulation become necessary.</p><h2>BABA’s Competitive Position</h2><p>As we’ve seen, China has a high growth economy–the kind of economy that a company wants to operate in. That’s a great start but we still need to know about BABA’s competitive position.</p><p>As an eCommerce company, BABA has few rivals of similar scale. JD.com (JD) technically does more revenue than BABA does, but it has much smaller margins. It could beat Alibaba on scale but probably not on profitability. JD holds and sells inventory. It’s hard to beat a “platform” company like BABA when you have inventory costs. It eats into margins.</p><p>Pinduoduo (PDD) has been cited as a potential competitor to BABA but there’s just not much evidence of PDD moving beyond agricultural goods. Its group buying model has proven popular in China, but until it moves into other verticals, it’s not competing with huge chunks of Alibaba’s business.</p><p>Tencent (OTCPK:TCEHY) competes with BABA in one limited way: it has a payment app. The Chinese government forced BABA and Tencent to accept each other’s payment apps last year. So the competition between these two companies for share of payments has indeed increased.</p><h2>BABA’s Financials</h2><p>Alibaba’s long-term financials are excellent. The most recent calendar year was a bit of a departure from the long term trend, but that could turn around.</p><p>According to Seeking Alpha Quant, BABA’s five year CAGR growth rates in revenue, earnings and cash flows are:</p><ul><li>Revenue: 42%.</li><li>Net income: 11.3%.</li><li>Diluted EPS: 9.8%.</li><li>Free cash flow: 13.66%.</li></ul><p>These are pretty solid metrics. They were all much higher prior to this year, but the 2021 Chinese tech crackdown caused last year’s numbers to suffer. BABA did take some new costs in 2021, like a $2.8 billion fine and a higher tax rate. However, the fine was non-recurring and the higher tax rate could be “outgrown” with enough quarters of strong revenue gains.</p><p>At any rate, Alibaba has more than enough financial strength to ride out a few lacklustre quarters. Its balance sheet is one of the strongest in the world, boasting eye-popping metrics like:</p><ul><li>$276 billion in assets.</li><li>$100 billion in liabilities.</li><li>$176 billion in equity.</li><li>$45 billion in cash.</li><li>About $20 billion in debt (calculated from $5.09 billion in bonds $14.85 billion in long term bank loans).</li><li>$105 billion in current assets.</li><li>$64 billion in current liabilities.</li><li>A 0.2 debt to equity ratio.</li><li>A 1.64 current ratio.</li></ul><p>So we have debt that is very low as a proportion of shareholder equity, and high liquidity. Even BABA’s cash and equivalents outstrip its long term debt! This suggests a very solid balance sheet and a second-to-none ability to ride out a crisis.</p><h2>Valuation</h2><p>Valuation has always been one of the pillars on which the BABA bull case has rested. BABA stock is very cheap by almost every multiple you can think of. Some of its most encouraging value metrics include:</p><ul><li>Adjusted P/E: 11.</li><li>Price/sales: 1.96.</li><li>Price/book: 1.67.</li><li>Price/operating cash flow: 9.37.</li></ul><p>All of these multiples are comparatively low for the tech sector. For comparison, Amazon (AMZN), the closest comparable U.S. company, has a 46 adjusted P/E ratio.</p><p>BABA’s GAAP P/E ratio (25) is a little high, but the most recent quarter included large unrealized losses on the company’s stock portfolio. Adjusted earnings and cash from operations are more closely related to the company’s operating performance, and not surprisingly, they were much higher than GAAP earnings. This isn’t just selective choice of non-GAAP measures either: operating cash flow is a GAAP metric and Alibaba reports in accordance with U.S. GAAP.</p><p>As we’ve seen, Alibaba is cheap, profitable, and has high historical growth. Certainly this stock has many things to recommend it, even after Charlie Munger rode off into the sunset. However, there are still risks and challenges to the bullish thesis on Alibaba stock. </p><p>These are real risks that investors will need to keep in mind. But on balance, Alibaba looks like a solid value play today. It’s still growing its revenue, its cloud business is inching toward profitability, and its valuation is cheaper than ever before. On the whole, it looks like a sweet deal – with or without Munger on board.</p></body></html>","collect":0,"html":"<!DOCTYPE html>\n<html>\n<head>\n<meta http-equiv=\"Content-Type\" content=\"text/html; charset=utf-8\" />\n<meta name=\"viewport\" content=\"width=device-width,initial-scale=1.0,minimum-scale=1.0,maximum-scale=1.0,user-scalable=no\"/>\n<meta name=\"format-detection\" content=\"telephone=no,email=no,address=no\" />\n<title>Alibaba: Munger Is Not The Thesis</title>\n<style type=\"text/css\">\na,abbr,acronym,address,applet,article,aside,audio,b,big,blockquote,body,canvas,caption,center,cite,code,dd,del,details,dfn,div,dl,dt,\nem,embed,fieldset,figcaption,figure,footer,form,h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6,header,hgroup,html,i,iframe,img,ins,kbd,label,legend,li,mark,menu,nav,\nobject,ol,output,p,pre,q,ruby,s,samp,section,small,span,strike,strong,sub,summary,sup,table,tbody,td,tfoot,th,thead,time,tr,tt,u,ul,var,video{ font:inherit;margin:0;padding:0;vertical-align:baseline;border:0 }\nbody{ font-size:16px; line-height:1.5; color:#999; background:transparent; }\n.wrapper{ overflow:hidden;word-break:break-all;padding:10px; }\nh1,h2{ font-weight:normal; line-height:1.35; margin-bottom:.6em; }\nh3,h4,h5,h6{ line-height:1.35; margin-bottom:1em; }\nh1{ font-size:24px; }\nh2{ font-size:20px; }\nh3{ font-size:18px; }\nh4{ font-size:16px; }\nh5{ font-size:14px; }\nh6{ font-size:12px; }\np,ul,ol,blockquote,dl,table{ margin:1.2em 0; }\nul,ol{ margin-left:2em; }\nul{ list-style:disc; }\nol{ list-style:decimal; }\nli,li p{ margin:10px 0;}\nimg{ max-width:100%;display:block;margin:0 auto 1em; }\nblockquote{ color:#B5B2B1; border-left:3px solid #aaa; padding:1em; }\nstrong,b{font-weight:bold;}\nem,i{font-style:italic;}\ntable{ width:100%;border-collapse:collapse;border-spacing:1px;margin:1em 0;font-size:.9em; }\nth,td{ padding:5px;text-align:left;border:1px solid #aaa; }\nth{ font-weight:bold;background:#5d5d5d; }\n.symbol-link{font-weight:bold;}\n/* header{ border-bottom:1px solid #494756; } */\n.title{ margin:0 0 8px;line-height:1.3;color:#ddd; }\n.meta {color:#5e5c6d;font-size:13px;margin:0 0 .5em; }\na{text-decoration:none; color:#2a4b87;}\n.meta .head { display: inline-block; overflow: hidden}\n.head .h-thumb { width: 30px; height: 30px; margin: 0; padding: 0; border-radius: 50%; float: left;}\n.head .h-content { margin: 0; padding: 0 0 0 9px; float: left;}\n.head .h-name {font-size: 13px; color: #eee; margin: 0;}\n.head .h-time {font-size: 11px; color: #7E829C; margin: 0;line-height: 11px;}\n.small {font-size: 12.5px; display: inline-block; transform: scale(0.9); -webkit-transform: scale(0.9); transform-origin: left; -webkit-transform-origin: left;}\n.smaller {font-size: 12.5px; display: inline-block; transform: scale(0.8); -webkit-transform: scale(0.8); transform-origin: left; -webkit-transform-origin: left;}\n.bt-text {font-size: 12px;margin: 1.5em 0 0 0}\n.bt-text p {margin: 0}\n</style>\n</head>\n<body>\n<div class=\"wrapper\">\n<header>\n<h2 class=\"title\">\nAlibaba: Munger Is Not The Thesis\n</h2>\n\n<h4 class=\"meta\">\n\n\n2022-04-18 13:16 GMT+8&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href=https://seekingalpha.com/article/4501707-alibaba-munger-not-thesis><strong>Seeking Alpha</strong></a>\n\n\n</h4>\n\n</header>\n<article>\n<div>\n<p>SummaryRecently the Daily Journal's 13F revealed that the company trimmed its Alibaba position by 50%.It isn't necessarily the case that former Chairman Charlie Munger sold due to weakening conviction...</p>\n\n<a href=\"https://seekingalpha.com/article/4501707-alibaba-munger-not-thesis\">Web Link</a>\n\n</div>\n\n\n</article>\n</div>\n</body>\n</html>\n","type":0,"thumbnail":"","relate_stocks":{"BABA":"阿里巴巴"},"source_url":"https://seekingalpha.com/article/4501707-alibaba-munger-not-thesis","is_english":true,"share_image_url":"https://static.laohu8.com/e9f99090a1c2ed51c021029395664489","article_id":"1110595663","content_text":"SummaryRecently the Daily Journal's 13F revealed that the company trimmed its Alibaba position by 50%.It isn't necessarily the case that former Chairman Charlie Munger sold due to weakening conviction on BABA stock itself.However, Munger IS out of the picture in one very real way: he is no longer the Daily Journal's Chairman.For this reason, Alibaba can no longer be considered a Munger copy trade.In this article, I develop a fundamentals-based thesis for those who cloned Munger and now aren't sure what to do.Charlie Munger’s Alibaba Group (NYSE:BABA) investment was the talk of the town last week. In its Q1 13F, the Daily Journal Corp (DJCO) revealed that it had sold 50% of its stake in the Chinese tech company, after several quarters of averaging down. It wasn’t immediately clear whether Munger himself made the decision to sell the shares, as he had stepped down just days before the end of the quarter. Tu To was elected to serve as the company’s CFO on March 22. She signed all of the company’s SEC filings from the 22nd onward.There are many reasons why Munger (or somebody else) might have chosen to sell Alibaba. Not all of them necessarily reflect lower conviction in the stock. It’s possible that DJCO converted some of its NYSE shares to Hong Kong shares, or sold to cover a margin loan. Munger hasn’t spoken on the matter publicly yet, nor have any other DJCO officers, so we don’t know.Charlie Munger is thought to have influenced many investors who bought BABA stock in 2021. He began buying the stock around $226, averaging down after that. Many other investors made similar moves. It was shortly after Munger’s first 13F featuring Alibaba that internet communities focused on BABA really started to take off. Some were founded just days after the release.Naturally, Munger’s apparent sale made a big splash. BABA has always been at least partially a Munger clone trade, and it appears that Munger’s conviction in the stock has diminished. Shortly after the 13F was released, investors took to Twitter offering opinions and running polls asking others about what had happened.We may never know. But it doesn’t matter, because BABA ceased being a Munger clone trade long before the 13F came out. When Munger stepped down as Chairman of the Daily Journal, it created ambiguity as to the actual level of influence he will exercise over the firm’s portfolio going forward. The DJCO portfolio is no longer a Munger portfolio–or at least, not 100% a Munger portfolio. For this reason, investors will need a better thesis than “clone Munger because he is good.” In this article, I will attempt to advance such a thesis, based on valuation, competitive position and China's economic growth. First, though, let’s examine why it will not be possible to clone “Munger’s” BABA trades in future quarters.Why Munger Can’t be Cloned AnymoreThere are two reasons why it is impossible to clone Munger’s future BABA trades:Munger is no longer Chairman of the Daily Journal.Some of DJCO’s potential trades are impossible to confirm.The first of these is easy enough to explain. When Munger was Chairman of the Daily Journal, he managed the investment portfolio. Now that he is no longer Chairman, he simply has the duties of a director. Munger could still volunteer to manage the portfolio, but the ultimate decisions would fall on Steven Myhill-Jones, the new CEO, or Tu To, the new CFO. The SEC filings announcing these new hires didn't say who'd manage the portfolio.The second reason why Munger can’t be cloned now is because some of his potential trades wouldn’t have to be disclosed. Munger is well known for not telling investors more than he has to. If he simply converted some of his NYSE ADRs to Hong Kong shares, as some think he did, then he is no longer under the obligation to report all of his holdings. As the SEC website states, you don’t have to disclose foreign listed shares in a 13F, even if your position is massive.What all this means is that cloning Munger’s BABA trades won’t be possible going forward. For those whose BABA position was little more than a Munger copycat, that has got to sting. Fortunately, the fundamentals-based thesis on the stock is not that difficult to comprehend, and can be explained in terms of four basic principles. In the next section I will explain that case in detail.The Bullish Thesis on BABAA strong bullish thesis on BABA can be built on four pillars:China’s economy.BABA’s competitive position.Financial health.Valuation.I’ll look at each of these factors one by one, starting with China’s economyChina’s EconomyDespite the negative headlines you’re seeing these days, China’s economy is very strong. Its GDP growth was 8.1% in 2021. GDP has grown at 7.4% CAGR over 10 years. In 2020, when many countries entered recessions, China’s growth merely decelerated to 2.2%. With all of this growth, you might think that China is pumping itself full of debt. But think again! At 66.8, China’s government debt as a percentage of GDP is lower than that of the U.S., Canada, and the Eurozone. You may have heard stories about China’s “debt problem,” and claims of a 250% debt to GDP ratio. The figure is correct but it includes all debt, government and private. China’s government debt–the kind used to pay for fiscal stimulus–is low as a percentage of GDP. So China is growing very quickly and is fiscally sound enough to stimulate its economy should stimulation become necessary.BABA’s Competitive PositionAs we’ve seen, China has a high growth economy–the kind of economy that a company wants to operate in. That’s a great start but we still need to know about BABA’s competitive position.As an eCommerce company, BABA has few rivals of similar scale. JD.com (JD) technically does more revenue than BABA does, but it has much smaller margins. It could beat Alibaba on scale but probably not on profitability. JD holds and sells inventory. It’s hard to beat a “platform” company like BABA when you have inventory costs. It eats into margins.Pinduoduo (PDD) has been cited as a potential competitor to BABA but there’s just not much evidence of PDD moving beyond agricultural goods. Its group buying model has proven popular in China, but until it moves into other verticals, it’s not competing with huge chunks of Alibaba’s business.Tencent (OTCPK:TCEHY) competes with BABA in one limited way: it has a payment app. The Chinese government forced BABA and Tencent to accept each other’s payment apps last year. So the competition between these two companies for share of payments has indeed increased.BABA’s FinancialsAlibaba’s long-term financials are excellent. The most recent calendar year was a bit of a departure from the long term trend, but that could turn around.According to Seeking Alpha Quant, BABA’s five year CAGR growth rates in revenue, earnings and cash flows are:Revenue: 42%.Net income: 11.3%.Diluted EPS: 9.8%.Free cash flow: 13.66%.These are pretty solid metrics. They were all much higher prior to this year, but the 2021 Chinese tech crackdown caused last year’s numbers to suffer. BABA did take some new costs in 2021, like a $2.8 billion fine and a higher tax rate. However, the fine was non-recurring and the higher tax rate could be “outgrown” with enough quarters of strong revenue gains.At any rate, Alibaba has more than enough financial strength to ride out a few lacklustre quarters. Its balance sheet is one of the strongest in the world, boasting eye-popping metrics like:$276 billion in assets.$100 billion in liabilities.$176 billion in equity.$45 billion in cash.About $20 billion in debt (calculated from $5.09 billion in bonds $14.85 billion in long term bank loans).$105 billion in current assets.$64 billion in current liabilities.A 0.2 debt to equity ratio.A 1.64 current ratio.So we have debt that is very low as a proportion of shareholder equity, and high liquidity. Even BABA’s cash and equivalents outstrip its long term debt! This suggests a very solid balance sheet and a second-to-none ability to ride out a crisis.ValuationValuation has always been one of the pillars on which the BABA bull case has rested. BABA stock is very cheap by almost every multiple you can think of. Some of its most encouraging value metrics include:Adjusted P/E: 11.Price/sales: 1.96.Price/book: 1.67.Price/operating cash flow: 9.37.All of these multiples are comparatively low for the tech sector. For comparison, Amazon (AMZN), the closest comparable U.S. company, has a 46 adjusted P/E ratio.BABA’s GAAP P/E ratio (25) is a little high, but the most recent quarter included large unrealized losses on the company’s stock portfolio. Adjusted earnings and cash from operations are more closely related to the company’s operating performance, and not surprisingly, they were much higher than GAAP earnings. This isn’t just selective choice of non-GAAP measures either: operating cash flow is a GAAP metric and Alibaba reports in accordance with U.S. GAAP.As we’ve seen, Alibaba is cheap, profitable, and has high historical growth. Certainly this stock has many things to recommend it, even after Charlie Munger rode off into the sunset. However, there are still risks and challenges to the bullish thesis on Alibaba stock. These are real risks that investors will need to keep in mind. But on balance, Alibaba looks like a solid value play today. It’s still growing its revenue, its cloud business is inching toward profitability, and its valuation is cheaper than ever before. On the whole, it looks like a sweet deal – with or without Munger on board.","news_type":1},"isVote":1,"likeStatus":false,"favoriteStatus":false,"reportStatus":false,"tweetType":1,"langContent":"EN"},{"id":9081492530,"gmtCreate":1650261784088,"gmtModify":1676534681676,"author":{"id":"4110059374530302","authorId":"4110059374530302","name":"Garry Singh","avatar":"https://community-static.tradeup.com/news/99b22414e11c35bc798debe4746152b6","vip":1,"crmLevel":1,"crmLevelSwitch":0},"htmlText":"Those people taking losses from Alibaba willdefinitely regret One day.&nbsp;It just covid policies In china which making this kind of company tanked.&nbsp;But deep down we all know covid ain't goingto stay forever.","listText":"Those people taking losses from Alibaba willdefinitely regret One day.&nbsp;It just covid policies In china which making this kind of company tanked.&nbsp;But deep down we all know covid ain't goingto stay forever.","text":"Those people taking losses from Alibaba willdefinitely regret One day. It just covid policies In china which making this kind of company tanked. But deep down we all know covid ain't goingto stay forever.","images":[],"top":1,"highlighted":1,"essential":1,"paper":1,"likeSize":5,"commentSize":0,"repostSize":0,"link":"https://ttm.financial/post/9081492530","repostId":1110595663,"repostType":2,"repost":{"id":"1110595663","pubTimestamp":1650258996,"share":"https://www.laohu8.com/m/news/1110595663?lang=&edition=full","pubTime":"2022-04-18 13:16","market":"us","language":"en","title":"Alibaba: Munger Is Not The Thesis","url":"https://stock-news.laohu8.com/highlight/detail?id=1110595663","media":"Seeking Alpha","summary":"SummaryRecently the Daily Journal's 13F revealed that the company trimmed its Alibaba position by 50%.It isn't necessarily the case that former Chairman Charlie Munger sold due to weakening conviction","content":"<html><head></head><body><p>Summary</p><ul><li>Recently the Daily Journal&#39;s 13F revealed that the company trimmed its Alibaba position by 50%.</li><li>It isn&#39;t necessarily the case that former Chairman Charlie Munger sold due to weakening conviction on BABA stock itself.</li><li>However, Munger IS out of the picture in one very real way: he is no longer the Daily Journal&#39;s Chairman.</li><li>For this reason, Alibaba can no longer be considered a Munger copy trade.</li><li>In this article, I develop a fundamentals-based thesis for those who cloned Munger and now aren&#39;t sure what to do.</li></ul><p>Charlie Munger’s Alibaba Group (NYSE:BABA) investment was the talk of the town last week. In its Q1 13F, the Daily Journal Corp (DJCO) revealed that it had sold 50% of its stake in the Chinese tech company, after several quarters of averaging down. It wasn’t immediately clear whether Munger himself made the decision to sell the shares, as he had stepped down just days before the end of the quarter. Tu To was elected to serve as the company’s CFO on March 22. She signed all of the company’s SEC filings from the 22nd onward.</p><p>There are many reasons why Munger (or somebody else) might have chosen to sell Alibaba. Not all of them necessarily reflect lower conviction in the stock. It’s possible that DJCO converted some of its NYSE shares to Hong Kong shares, or sold to cover a margin loan. Munger hasn’t spoken on the matter publicly yet, nor have any other DJCO officers, so we don’t know.</p><p>Charlie Munger is thought to have influenced many investors who bought BABA stock in 2021. He began buying the stock around $226, averaging down after that. Many other investors made similar moves. It was shortly after Munger’s first 13F featuring Alibaba that internet communities focused on BABA really started to take off. Some were founded just days after the release.</p><p>Naturally, Munger’s apparent sale made a big splash. BABA has always been at least partially a Munger clone trade, and it appears that Munger’s conviction in the stock has diminished. Shortly after the 13F was released, investors took to Twitter offering opinions and running polls asking others about what had happened.</p><p>We may never know. But it doesn’t matter, because BABA ceased being a Munger clone trade long before the 13F came out. When Munger stepped down as Chairman of the Daily Journal, it created ambiguity as to the actual level of influence he will exercise over the firm’s portfolio going forward. The DJCO portfolio is no longer a Munger portfolio–or at least, not 100% a Munger portfolio. For this reason, investors will need a better thesis than “clone Munger because he is good.” In this article, I will attempt to advance such a thesis, based on valuation, competitive position and China&#39;s economic growth. First, though, let’s examine why it will not be possible to clone “Munger’s” BABA trades in future quarters.</p><p>Why Munger Can’t be Cloned Anymore</p><p>There are two reasons why it is impossible to clone Munger’s future BABA trades:</p><ol><li>Munger is no longer Chairman of the Daily Journal.</li><li>Some of DJCO’s potential trades are impossible to confirm.</li></ol><p>The first of these is easy enough to explain. When Munger was Chairman of the Daily Journal, he managed the investment portfolio. Now that he is no longer Chairman, he simply has the duties of a director. Munger could still volunteer to manage the portfolio, but the ultimate decisions would fall on Steven Myhill-Jones, the new CEO, or Tu To, the new CFO. The SEC filings announcing these new hires didn&#39;t say who&#39;d manage the portfolio.</p><p>The second reason why Munger can’t be cloned now is because some of his potential trades wouldn’t have to be disclosed. Munger is well known for not telling investors more than he has to. If he simply converted some of his NYSE ADRs to Hong Kong shares, as some think he did, then he is no longer under the obligation to report all of his holdings. As the SEC website states, you don’t have to disclose foreign listed shares in a 13F, even if your position is massive.</p><p><img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/5852b29d02869d997a4c8ce719caa59f\" tg-width=\"575\" tg-height=\"191\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\" width=\"100%\" height=\"auto\"/></p><p>What all this means is that cloning Munger’s BABA trades won’t be possible going forward. For those whose BABA position was little more than a Munger copycat, that has got to sting. Fortunately, the fundamentals-based thesis on the stock is not that difficult to comprehend, and can be explained in terms of four basic principles. In the next section I will explain that case in detail.</p><h2>The Bullish Thesis on BABA</h2><p>A strong bullish thesis on BABA can be built on four pillars:</p><ul><li>China’s economy.</li><li>BABA’s competitive position.</li><li>Financial health.</li><li>Valuation.</li></ul><p>I’ll look at each of these factors one by one, starting with China’s economy</p><h2>China’s Economy</h2><p>Despite the negative headlines you’re seeing these days, China’s economy is very strong. Its GDP growth was 8.1% in 2021. GDP has grown at 7.4% CAGR over 10 years. In 2020, when many countries entered recessions, China’s growth merely decelerated to 2.2%. With all of this growth, you might think that China is pumping itself full of debt. But think again! At 66.8, China’s government debt as a percentage of GDP is lower than that of the U.S., Canada, and the Eurozone. You may have heard stories about China’s “debt problem,” and claims of a 250% debt to GDP ratio. The figure is correct but it includes all debt, government and private. China’s government debt–the kind used to pay for fiscal stimulus–is low as a percentage of GDP. So China is growing very quickly and is fiscally sound enough to stimulate its economy should stimulation become necessary.</p><h2>BABA’s Competitive Position</h2><p>As we’ve seen, China has a high growth economy–the kind of economy that a company wants to operate in. That’s a great start but we still need to know about BABA’s competitive position.</p><p>As an eCommerce company, BABA has few rivals of similar scale. JD.com (JD) technically does more revenue than BABA does, but it has much smaller margins. It could beat Alibaba on scale but probably not on profitability. JD holds and sells inventory. It’s hard to beat a “platform” company like BABA when you have inventory costs. It eats into margins.</p><p>Pinduoduo (PDD) has been cited as a potential competitor to BABA but there’s just not much evidence of PDD moving beyond agricultural goods. Its group buying model has proven popular in China, but until it moves into other verticals, it’s not competing with huge chunks of Alibaba’s business.</p><p>Tencent (OTCPK:TCEHY) competes with BABA in one limited way: it has a payment app. The Chinese government forced BABA and Tencent to accept each other’s payment apps last year. So the competition between these two companies for share of payments has indeed increased.</p><h2>BABA’s Financials</h2><p>Alibaba’s long-term financials are excellent. The most recent calendar year was a bit of a departure from the long term trend, but that could turn around.</p><p>According to Seeking Alpha Quant, BABA’s five year CAGR growth rates in revenue, earnings and cash flows are:</p><ul><li>Revenue: 42%.</li><li>Net income: 11.3%.</li><li>Diluted EPS: 9.8%.</li><li>Free cash flow: 13.66%.</li></ul><p>These are pretty solid metrics. They were all much higher prior to this year, but the 2021 Chinese tech crackdown caused last year’s numbers to suffer. BABA did take some new costs in 2021, like a $2.8 billion fine and a higher tax rate. However, the fine was non-recurring and the higher tax rate could be “outgrown” with enough quarters of strong revenue gains.</p><p>At any rate, Alibaba has more than enough financial strength to ride out a few lacklustre quarters. Its balance sheet is one of the strongest in the world, boasting eye-popping metrics like:</p><ul><li>$276 billion in assets.</li><li>$100 billion in liabilities.</li><li>$176 billion in equity.</li><li>$45 billion in cash.</li><li>About $20 billion in debt (calculated from $5.09 billion in bonds $14.85 billion in long term bank loans).</li><li>$105 billion in current assets.</li><li>$64 billion in current liabilities.</li><li>A 0.2 debt to equity ratio.</li><li>A 1.64 current ratio.</li></ul><p>So we have debt that is very low as a proportion of shareholder equity, and high liquidity. Even BABA’s cash and equivalents outstrip its long term debt! This suggests a very solid balance sheet and a second-to-none ability to ride out a crisis.</p><h2>Valuation</h2><p>Valuation has always been one of the pillars on which the BABA bull case has rested. BABA stock is very cheap by almost every multiple you can think of. Some of its most encouraging value metrics include:</p><ul><li>Adjusted P/E: 11.</li><li>Price/sales: 1.96.</li><li>Price/book: 1.67.</li><li>Price/operating cash flow: 9.37.</li></ul><p>All of these multiples are comparatively low for the tech sector. For comparison, Amazon (AMZN), the closest comparable U.S. company, has a 46 adjusted P/E ratio.</p><p>BABA’s GAAP P/E ratio (25) is a little high, but the most recent quarter included large unrealized losses on the company’s stock portfolio. Adjusted earnings and cash from operations are more closely related to the company’s operating performance, and not surprisingly, they were much higher than GAAP earnings. This isn’t just selective choice of non-GAAP measures either: operating cash flow is a GAAP metric and Alibaba reports in accordance with U.S. GAAP.</p><p>As we’ve seen, Alibaba is cheap, profitable, and has high historical growth. Certainly this stock has many things to recommend it, even after Charlie Munger rode off into the sunset. However, there are still risks and challenges to the bullish thesis on Alibaba stock. </p><p>These are real risks that investors will need to keep in mind. But on balance, Alibaba looks like a solid value play today. It’s still growing its revenue, its cloud business is inching toward profitability, and its valuation is cheaper than ever before. On the whole, it looks like a sweet deal – with or without Munger on board.</p></body></html>","collect":0,"html":"<!DOCTYPE html>\n<html>\n<head>\n<meta http-equiv=\"Content-Type\" content=\"text/html; charset=utf-8\" />\n<meta name=\"viewport\" content=\"width=device-width,initial-scale=1.0,minimum-scale=1.0,maximum-scale=1.0,user-scalable=no\"/>\n<meta name=\"format-detection\" content=\"telephone=no,email=no,address=no\" />\n<title>Alibaba: Munger Is Not The Thesis</title>\n<style type=\"text/css\">\na,abbr,acronym,address,applet,article,aside,audio,b,big,blockquote,body,canvas,caption,center,cite,code,dd,del,details,dfn,div,dl,dt,\nem,embed,fieldset,figcaption,figure,footer,form,h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6,header,hgroup,html,i,iframe,img,ins,kbd,label,legend,li,mark,menu,nav,\nobject,ol,output,p,pre,q,ruby,s,samp,section,small,span,strike,strong,sub,summary,sup,table,tbody,td,tfoot,th,thead,time,tr,tt,u,ul,var,video{ font:inherit;margin:0;padding:0;vertical-align:baseline;border:0 }\nbody{ font-size:16px; line-height:1.5; color:#999; background:transparent; }\n.wrapper{ overflow:hidden;word-break:break-all;padding:10px; }\nh1,h2{ font-weight:normal; line-height:1.35; margin-bottom:.6em; }\nh3,h4,h5,h6{ line-height:1.35; margin-bottom:1em; }\nh1{ font-size:24px; }\nh2{ font-size:20px; }\nh3{ font-size:18px; }\nh4{ font-size:16px; }\nh5{ font-size:14px; }\nh6{ font-size:12px; }\np,ul,ol,blockquote,dl,table{ margin:1.2em 0; }\nul,ol{ margin-left:2em; }\nul{ list-style:disc; }\nol{ list-style:decimal; }\nli,li p{ margin:10px 0;}\nimg{ max-width:100%;display:block;margin:0 auto 1em; }\nblockquote{ color:#B5B2B1; border-left:3px solid #aaa; padding:1em; }\nstrong,b{font-weight:bold;}\nem,i{font-style:italic;}\ntable{ width:100%;border-collapse:collapse;border-spacing:1px;margin:1em 0;font-size:.9em; }\nth,td{ padding:5px;text-align:left;border:1px solid #aaa; }\nth{ font-weight:bold;background:#5d5d5d; }\n.symbol-link{font-weight:bold;}\n/* header{ border-bottom:1px solid #494756; } */\n.title{ margin:0 0 8px;line-height:1.3;color:#ddd; }\n.meta {color:#5e5c6d;font-size:13px;margin:0 0 .5em; }\na{text-decoration:none; color:#2a4b87;}\n.meta .head { display: inline-block; overflow: hidden}\n.head .h-thumb { width: 30px; height: 30px; margin: 0; padding: 0; border-radius: 50%; float: left;}\n.head .h-content { margin: 0; padding: 0 0 0 9px; float: left;}\n.head .h-name {font-size: 13px; color: #eee; margin: 0;}\n.head .h-time {font-size: 11px; color: #7E829C; margin: 0;line-height: 11px;}\n.small {font-size: 12.5px; display: inline-block; transform: scale(0.9); -webkit-transform: scale(0.9); transform-origin: left; -webkit-transform-origin: left;}\n.smaller {font-size: 12.5px; display: inline-block; transform: scale(0.8); -webkit-transform: scale(0.8); transform-origin: left; -webkit-transform-origin: left;}\n.bt-text {font-size: 12px;margin: 1.5em 0 0 0}\n.bt-text p {margin: 0}\n</style>\n</head>\n<body>\n<div class=\"wrapper\">\n<header>\n<h2 class=\"title\">\nAlibaba: Munger Is Not The Thesis\n</h2>\n\n<h4 class=\"meta\">\n\n\n2022-04-18 13:16 GMT+8&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href=https://seekingalpha.com/article/4501707-alibaba-munger-not-thesis><strong>Seeking Alpha</strong></a>\n\n\n</h4>\n\n</header>\n<article>\n<div>\n<p>SummaryRecently the Daily Journal's 13F revealed that the company trimmed its Alibaba position by 50%.It isn't necessarily the case that former Chairman Charlie Munger sold due to weakening conviction...</p>\n\n<a href=\"https://seekingalpha.com/article/4501707-alibaba-munger-not-thesis\">Web Link</a>\n\n</div>\n\n\n</article>\n</div>\n</body>\n</html>\n","type":0,"thumbnail":"","relate_stocks":{"BABA":"阿里巴巴"},"source_url":"https://seekingalpha.com/article/4501707-alibaba-munger-not-thesis","is_english":true,"share_image_url":"https://static.laohu8.com/e9f99090a1c2ed51c021029395664489","article_id":"1110595663","content_text":"SummaryRecently the Daily Journal's 13F revealed that the company trimmed its Alibaba position by 50%.It isn't necessarily the case that former Chairman Charlie Munger sold due to weakening conviction on BABA stock itself.However, Munger IS out of the picture in one very real way: he is no longer the Daily Journal's Chairman.For this reason, Alibaba can no longer be considered a Munger copy trade.In this article, I develop a fundamentals-based thesis for those who cloned Munger and now aren't sure what to do.Charlie Munger’s Alibaba Group (NYSE:BABA) investment was the talk of the town last week. In its Q1 13F, the Daily Journal Corp (DJCO) revealed that it had sold 50% of its stake in the Chinese tech company, after several quarters of averaging down. It wasn’t immediately clear whether Munger himself made the decision to sell the shares, as he had stepped down just days before the end of the quarter. Tu To was elected to serve as the company’s CFO on March 22. She signed all of the company’s SEC filings from the 22nd onward.There are many reasons why Munger (or somebody else) might have chosen to sell Alibaba. Not all of them necessarily reflect lower conviction in the stock. It’s possible that DJCO converted some of its NYSE shares to Hong Kong shares, or sold to cover a margin loan. Munger hasn’t spoken on the matter publicly yet, nor have any other DJCO officers, so we don’t know.Charlie Munger is thought to have influenced many investors who bought BABA stock in 2021. He began buying the stock around $226, averaging down after that. Many other investors made similar moves. It was shortly after Munger’s first 13F featuring Alibaba that internet communities focused on BABA really started to take off. Some were founded just days after the release.Naturally, Munger’s apparent sale made a big splash. BABA has always been at least partially a Munger clone trade, and it appears that Munger’s conviction in the stock has diminished. Shortly after the 13F was released, investors took to Twitter offering opinions and running polls asking others about what had happened.We may never know. But it doesn’t matter, because BABA ceased being a Munger clone trade long before the 13F came out. When Munger stepped down as Chairman of the Daily Journal, it created ambiguity as to the actual level of influence he will exercise over the firm’s portfolio going forward. The DJCO portfolio is no longer a Munger portfolio–or at least, not 100% a Munger portfolio. For this reason, investors will need a better thesis than “clone Munger because he is good.” In this article, I will attempt to advance such a thesis, based on valuation, competitive position and China's economic growth. First, though, let’s examine why it will not be possible to clone “Munger’s” BABA trades in future quarters.Why Munger Can’t be Cloned AnymoreThere are two reasons why it is impossible to clone Munger’s future BABA trades:Munger is no longer Chairman of the Daily Journal.Some of DJCO’s potential trades are impossible to confirm.The first of these is easy enough to explain. When Munger was Chairman of the Daily Journal, he managed the investment portfolio. Now that he is no longer Chairman, he simply has the duties of a director. Munger could still volunteer to manage the portfolio, but the ultimate decisions would fall on Steven Myhill-Jones, the new CEO, or Tu To, the new CFO. The SEC filings announcing these new hires didn't say who'd manage the portfolio.The second reason why Munger can’t be cloned now is because some of his potential trades wouldn’t have to be disclosed. Munger is well known for not telling investors more than he has to. If he simply converted some of his NYSE ADRs to Hong Kong shares, as some think he did, then he is no longer under the obligation to report all of his holdings. As the SEC website states, you don’t have to disclose foreign listed shares in a 13F, even if your position is massive.What all this means is that cloning Munger’s BABA trades won’t be possible going forward. For those whose BABA position was little more than a Munger copycat, that has got to sting. Fortunately, the fundamentals-based thesis on the stock is not that difficult to comprehend, and can be explained in terms of four basic principles. In the next section I will explain that case in detail.The Bullish Thesis on BABAA strong bullish thesis on BABA can be built on four pillars:China’s economy.BABA’s competitive position.Financial health.Valuation.I’ll look at each of these factors one by one, starting with China’s economyChina’s EconomyDespite the negative headlines you’re seeing these days, China’s economy is very strong. Its GDP growth was 8.1% in 2021. GDP has grown at 7.4% CAGR over 10 years. In 2020, when many countries entered recessions, China’s growth merely decelerated to 2.2%. With all of this growth, you might think that China is pumping itself full of debt. But think again! At 66.8, China’s government debt as a percentage of GDP is lower than that of the U.S., Canada, and the Eurozone. You may have heard stories about China’s “debt problem,” and claims of a 250% debt to GDP ratio. The figure is correct but it includes all debt, government and private. China’s government debt–the kind used to pay for fiscal stimulus–is low as a percentage of GDP. So China is growing very quickly and is fiscally sound enough to stimulate its economy should stimulation become necessary.BABA’s Competitive PositionAs we’ve seen, China has a high growth economy–the kind of economy that a company wants to operate in. That’s a great start but we still need to know about BABA’s competitive position.As an eCommerce company, BABA has few rivals of similar scale. JD.com (JD) technically does more revenue than BABA does, but it has much smaller margins. It could beat Alibaba on scale but probably not on profitability. JD holds and sells inventory. It’s hard to beat a “platform” company like BABA when you have inventory costs. It eats into margins.Pinduoduo (PDD) has been cited as a potential competitor to BABA but there’s just not much evidence of PDD moving beyond agricultural goods. Its group buying model has proven popular in China, but until it moves into other verticals, it’s not competing with huge chunks of Alibaba’s business.Tencent (OTCPK:TCEHY) competes with BABA in one limited way: it has a payment app. The Chinese government forced BABA and Tencent to accept each other’s payment apps last year. So the competition between these two companies for share of payments has indeed increased.BABA’s FinancialsAlibaba’s long-term financials are excellent. The most recent calendar year was a bit of a departure from the long term trend, but that could turn around.According to Seeking Alpha Quant, BABA’s five year CAGR growth rates in revenue, earnings and cash flows are:Revenue: 42%.Net income: 11.3%.Diluted EPS: 9.8%.Free cash flow: 13.66%.These are pretty solid metrics. They were all much higher prior to this year, but the 2021 Chinese tech crackdown caused last year’s numbers to suffer. BABA did take some new costs in 2021, like a $2.8 billion fine and a higher tax rate. However, the fine was non-recurring and the higher tax rate could be “outgrown” with enough quarters of strong revenue gains.At any rate, Alibaba has more than enough financial strength to ride out a few lacklustre quarters. Its balance sheet is one of the strongest in the world, boasting eye-popping metrics like:$276 billion in assets.$100 billion in liabilities.$176 billion in equity.$45 billion in cash.About $20 billion in debt (calculated from $5.09 billion in bonds $14.85 billion in long term bank loans).$105 billion in current assets.$64 billion in current liabilities.A 0.2 debt to equity ratio.A 1.64 current ratio.So we have debt that is very low as a proportion of shareholder equity, and high liquidity. Even BABA’s cash and equivalents outstrip its long term debt! This suggests a very solid balance sheet and a second-to-none ability to ride out a crisis.ValuationValuation has always been one of the pillars on which the BABA bull case has rested. BABA stock is very cheap by almost every multiple you can think of. Some of its most encouraging value metrics include:Adjusted P/E: 11.Price/sales: 1.96.Price/book: 1.67.Price/operating cash flow: 9.37.All of these multiples are comparatively low for the tech sector. For comparison, Amazon (AMZN), the closest comparable U.S. company, has a 46 adjusted P/E ratio.BABA’s GAAP P/E ratio (25) is a little high, but the most recent quarter included large unrealized losses on the company’s stock portfolio. Adjusted earnings and cash from operations are more closely related to the company’s operating performance, and not surprisingly, they were much higher than GAAP earnings. This isn’t just selective choice of non-GAAP measures either: operating cash flow is a GAAP metric and Alibaba reports in accordance with U.S. GAAP.As we’ve seen, Alibaba is cheap, profitable, and has high historical growth. Certainly this stock has many things to recommend it, even after Charlie Munger rode off into the sunset. However, there are still risks and challenges to the bullish thesis on Alibaba stock. These are real risks that investors will need to keep in mind. But on balance, Alibaba looks like a solid value play today. It’s still growing its revenue, its cloud business is inching toward profitability, and its valuation is cheaper than ever before. On the whole, it looks like a sweet deal – with or without Munger on board.","news_type":1},"isVote":1,"likeStatus":false,"favoriteStatus":false,"reportStatus":false,"tweetType":1,"langContent":"EN"},{"id":9081492212,"gmtCreate":1650261781776,"gmtModify":1676534681676,"author":{"id":"3569231041389085","authorId":"3569231041389085","name":"股勇者","avatar":"https://static.tigerbbs.com/c89070ce8edf787f6d092f16defbca0a","vip":1,"hat":"https://static.tigerbbs.com/b073a07f77dbe6b3bec6b12311fde6bd","crmLevel":5,"crmLevelSwitch":1},"htmlText":"Thanks","listText":"Thanks","text":"Thanks","images":[],"top":1,"highlighted":1,"essential":1,"paper":1,"likeSize":3,"commentSize":0,"repostSize":0,"link":"https://ttm.financial/post/9081492212","repostId":1110595663,"repostType":2,"repost":{"id":"1110595663","pubTimestamp":1650258996,"share":"https://www.laohu8.com/m/news/1110595663?lang=&edition=full","pubTime":"2022-04-18 13:16","market":"us","language":"en","title":"Alibaba: Munger Is Not The Thesis","url":"https://stock-news.laohu8.com/highlight/detail?id=1110595663","media":"Seeking Alpha","summary":"SummaryRecently the Daily Journal's 13F revealed that the company trimmed its Alibaba position by 50%.It isn't necessarily the case that former Chairman Charlie Munger sold due to weakening conviction","content":"<html><head></head><body><p>Summary</p><ul><li>Recently the Daily Journal&#39;s 13F revealed that the company trimmed its Alibaba position by 50%.</li><li>It isn&#39;t necessarily the case that former Chairman Charlie Munger sold due to weakening conviction on BABA stock itself.</li><li>However, Munger IS out of the picture in one very real way: he is no longer the Daily Journal&#39;s Chairman.</li><li>For this reason, Alibaba can no longer be considered a Munger copy trade.</li><li>In this article, I develop a fundamentals-based thesis for those who cloned Munger and now aren&#39;t sure what to do.</li></ul><p>Charlie Munger’s Alibaba Group (NYSE:BABA) investment was the talk of the town last week. In its Q1 13F, the Daily Journal Corp (DJCO) revealed that it had sold 50% of its stake in the Chinese tech company, after several quarters of averaging down. It wasn’t immediately clear whether Munger himself made the decision to sell the shares, as he had stepped down just days before the end of the quarter. Tu To was elected to serve as the company’s CFO on March 22. She signed all of the company’s SEC filings from the 22nd onward.</p><p>There are many reasons why Munger (or somebody else) might have chosen to sell Alibaba. Not all of them necessarily reflect lower conviction in the stock. It’s possible that DJCO converted some of its NYSE shares to Hong Kong shares, or sold to cover a margin loan. Munger hasn’t spoken on the matter publicly yet, nor have any other DJCO officers, so we don’t know.</p><p>Charlie Munger is thought to have influenced many investors who bought BABA stock in 2021. He began buying the stock around $226, averaging down after that. Many other investors made similar moves. It was shortly after Munger’s first 13F featuring Alibaba that internet communities focused on BABA really started to take off. Some were founded just days after the release.</p><p>Naturally, Munger’s apparent sale made a big splash. BABA has always been at least partially a Munger clone trade, and it appears that Munger’s conviction in the stock has diminished. Shortly after the 13F was released, investors took to Twitter offering opinions and running polls asking others about what had happened.</p><p>We may never know. But it doesn’t matter, because BABA ceased being a Munger clone trade long before the 13F came out. When Munger stepped down as Chairman of the Daily Journal, it created ambiguity as to the actual level of influence he will exercise over the firm’s portfolio going forward. The DJCO portfolio is no longer a Munger portfolio–or at least, not 100% a Munger portfolio. For this reason, investors will need a better thesis than “clone Munger because he is good.” In this article, I will attempt to advance such a thesis, based on valuation, competitive position and China&#39;s economic growth. First, though, let’s examine why it will not be possible to clone “Munger’s” BABA trades in future quarters.</p><p>Why Munger Can’t be Cloned Anymore</p><p>There are two reasons why it is impossible to clone Munger’s future BABA trades:</p><ol><li>Munger is no longer Chairman of the Daily Journal.</li><li>Some of DJCO’s potential trades are impossible to confirm.</li></ol><p>The first of these is easy enough to explain. When Munger was Chairman of the Daily Journal, he managed the investment portfolio. Now that he is no longer Chairman, he simply has the duties of a director. Munger could still volunteer to manage the portfolio, but the ultimate decisions would fall on Steven Myhill-Jones, the new CEO, or Tu To, the new CFO. The SEC filings announcing these new hires didn&#39;t say who&#39;d manage the portfolio.</p><p>The second reason why Munger can’t be cloned now is because some of his potential trades wouldn’t have to be disclosed. Munger is well known for not telling investors more than he has to. If he simply converted some of his NYSE ADRs to Hong Kong shares, as some think he did, then he is no longer under the obligation to report all of his holdings. As the SEC website states, you don’t have to disclose foreign listed shares in a 13F, even if your position is massive.</p><p><img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/5852b29d02869d997a4c8ce719caa59f\" tg-width=\"575\" tg-height=\"191\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\" width=\"100%\" height=\"auto\"/></p><p>What all this means is that cloning Munger’s BABA trades won’t be possible going forward. For those whose BABA position was little more than a Munger copycat, that has got to sting. Fortunately, the fundamentals-based thesis on the stock is not that difficult to comprehend, and can be explained in terms of four basic principles. In the next section I will explain that case in detail.</p><h2>The Bullish Thesis on BABA</h2><p>A strong bullish thesis on BABA can be built on four pillars:</p><ul><li>China’s economy.</li><li>BABA’s competitive position.</li><li>Financial health.</li><li>Valuation.</li></ul><p>I’ll look at each of these factors one by one, starting with China’s economy</p><h2>China’s Economy</h2><p>Despite the negative headlines you’re seeing these days, China’s economy is very strong. Its GDP growth was 8.1% in 2021. GDP has grown at 7.4% CAGR over 10 years. In 2020, when many countries entered recessions, China’s growth merely decelerated to 2.2%. With all of this growth, you might think that China is pumping itself full of debt. But think again! At 66.8, China’s government debt as a percentage of GDP is lower than that of the U.S., Canada, and the Eurozone. You may have heard stories about China’s “debt problem,” and claims of a 250% debt to GDP ratio. The figure is correct but it includes all debt, government and private. China’s government debt–the kind used to pay for fiscal stimulus–is low as a percentage of GDP. So China is growing very quickly and is fiscally sound enough to stimulate its economy should stimulation become necessary.</p><h2>BABA’s Competitive Position</h2><p>As we’ve seen, China has a high growth economy–the kind of economy that a company wants to operate in. That’s a great start but we still need to know about BABA’s competitive position.</p><p>As an eCommerce company, BABA has few rivals of similar scale. JD.com (JD) technically does more revenue than BABA does, but it has much smaller margins. It could beat Alibaba on scale but probably not on profitability. JD holds and sells inventory. It’s hard to beat a “platform” company like BABA when you have inventory costs. It eats into margins.</p><p>Pinduoduo (PDD) has been cited as a potential competitor to BABA but there’s just not much evidence of PDD moving beyond agricultural goods. Its group buying model has proven popular in China, but until it moves into other verticals, it’s not competing with huge chunks of Alibaba’s business.</p><p>Tencent (OTCPK:TCEHY) competes with BABA in one limited way: it has a payment app. The Chinese government forced BABA and Tencent to accept each other’s payment apps last year. So the competition between these two companies for share of payments has indeed increased.</p><h2>BABA’s Financials</h2><p>Alibaba’s long-term financials are excellent. The most recent calendar year was a bit of a departure from the long term trend, but that could turn around.</p><p>According to Seeking Alpha Quant, BABA’s five year CAGR growth rates in revenue, earnings and cash flows are:</p><ul><li>Revenue: 42%.</li><li>Net income: 11.3%.</li><li>Diluted EPS: 9.8%.</li><li>Free cash flow: 13.66%.</li></ul><p>These are pretty solid metrics. They were all much higher prior to this year, but the 2021 Chinese tech crackdown caused last year’s numbers to suffer. BABA did take some new costs in 2021, like a $2.8 billion fine and a higher tax rate. However, the fine was non-recurring and the higher tax rate could be “outgrown” with enough quarters of strong revenue gains.</p><p>At any rate, Alibaba has more than enough financial strength to ride out a few lacklustre quarters. Its balance sheet is one of the strongest in the world, boasting eye-popping metrics like:</p><ul><li>$276 billion in assets.</li><li>$100 billion in liabilities.</li><li>$176 billion in equity.</li><li>$45 billion in cash.</li><li>About $20 billion in debt (calculated from $5.09 billion in bonds $14.85 billion in long term bank loans).</li><li>$105 billion in current assets.</li><li>$64 billion in current liabilities.</li><li>A 0.2 debt to equity ratio.</li><li>A 1.64 current ratio.</li></ul><p>So we have debt that is very low as a proportion of shareholder equity, and high liquidity. Even BABA’s cash and equivalents outstrip its long term debt! This suggests a very solid balance sheet and a second-to-none ability to ride out a crisis.</p><h2>Valuation</h2><p>Valuation has always been one of the pillars on which the BABA bull case has rested. BABA stock is very cheap by almost every multiple you can think of. Some of its most encouraging value metrics include:</p><ul><li>Adjusted P/E: 11.</li><li>Price/sales: 1.96.</li><li>Price/book: 1.67.</li><li>Price/operating cash flow: 9.37.</li></ul><p>All of these multiples are comparatively low for the tech sector. For comparison, Amazon (AMZN), the closest comparable U.S. company, has a 46 adjusted P/E ratio.</p><p>BABA’s GAAP P/E ratio (25) is a little high, but the most recent quarter included large unrealized losses on the company’s stock portfolio. Adjusted earnings and cash from operations are more closely related to the company’s operating performance, and not surprisingly, they were much higher than GAAP earnings. This isn’t just selective choice of non-GAAP measures either: operating cash flow is a GAAP metric and Alibaba reports in accordance with U.S. GAAP.</p><p>As we’ve seen, Alibaba is cheap, profitable, and has high historical growth. Certainly this stock has many things to recommend it, even after Charlie Munger rode off into the sunset. However, there are still risks and challenges to the bullish thesis on Alibaba stock. </p><p>These are real risks that investors will need to keep in mind. But on balance, Alibaba looks like a solid value play today. It’s still growing its revenue, its cloud business is inching toward profitability, and its valuation is cheaper than ever before. On the whole, it looks like a sweet deal – with or without Munger on board.</p></body></html>","collect":0,"html":"<!DOCTYPE html>\n<html>\n<head>\n<meta http-equiv=\"Content-Type\" content=\"text/html; charset=utf-8\" />\n<meta name=\"viewport\" content=\"width=device-width,initial-scale=1.0,minimum-scale=1.0,maximum-scale=1.0,user-scalable=no\"/>\n<meta name=\"format-detection\" content=\"telephone=no,email=no,address=no\" />\n<title>Alibaba: Munger Is Not The Thesis</title>\n<style type=\"text/css\">\na,abbr,acronym,address,applet,article,aside,audio,b,big,blockquote,body,canvas,caption,center,cite,code,dd,del,details,dfn,div,dl,dt,\nem,embed,fieldset,figcaption,figure,footer,form,h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6,header,hgroup,html,i,iframe,img,ins,kbd,label,legend,li,mark,menu,nav,\nobject,ol,output,p,pre,q,ruby,s,samp,section,small,span,strike,strong,sub,summary,sup,table,tbody,td,tfoot,th,thead,time,tr,tt,u,ul,var,video{ font:inherit;margin:0;padding:0;vertical-align:baseline;border:0 }\nbody{ font-size:16px; line-height:1.5; color:#999; background:transparent; }\n.wrapper{ overflow:hidden;word-break:break-all;padding:10px; }\nh1,h2{ font-weight:normal; line-height:1.35; margin-bottom:.6em; }\nh3,h4,h5,h6{ line-height:1.35; margin-bottom:1em; }\nh1{ font-size:24px; }\nh2{ font-size:20px; }\nh3{ font-size:18px; }\nh4{ font-size:16px; }\nh5{ font-size:14px; }\nh6{ font-size:12px; }\np,ul,ol,blockquote,dl,table{ margin:1.2em 0; }\nul,ol{ margin-left:2em; }\nul{ list-style:disc; }\nol{ list-style:decimal; }\nli,li p{ margin:10px 0;}\nimg{ max-width:100%;display:block;margin:0 auto 1em; }\nblockquote{ color:#B5B2B1; border-left:3px solid #aaa; padding:1em; }\nstrong,b{font-weight:bold;}\nem,i{font-style:italic;}\ntable{ width:100%;border-collapse:collapse;border-spacing:1px;margin:1em 0;font-size:.9em; }\nth,td{ padding:5px;text-align:left;border:1px solid #aaa; }\nth{ font-weight:bold;background:#5d5d5d; }\n.symbol-link{font-weight:bold;}\n/* header{ border-bottom:1px solid #494756; } */\n.title{ margin:0 0 8px;line-height:1.3;color:#ddd; }\n.meta {color:#5e5c6d;font-size:13px;margin:0 0 .5em; }\na{text-decoration:none; color:#2a4b87;}\n.meta .head { display: inline-block; overflow: hidden}\n.head .h-thumb { width: 30px; height: 30px; margin: 0; padding: 0; border-radius: 50%; float: left;}\n.head .h-content { margin: 0; padding: 0 0 0 9px; float: left;}\n.head .h-name {font-size: 13px; color: #eee; margin: 0;}\n.head .h-time {font-size: 11px; color: #7E829C; margin: 0;line-height: 11px;}\n.small {font-size: 12.5px; display: inline-block; transform: scale(0.9); -webkit-transform: scale(0.9); transform-origin: left; -webkit-transform-origin: left;}\n.smaller {font-size: 12.5px; display: inline-block; transform: scale(0.8); -webkit-transform: scale(0.8); transform-origin: left; -webkit-transform-origin: left;}\n.bt-text {font-size: 12px;margin: 1.5em 0 0 0}\n.bt-text p {margin: 0}\n</style>\n</head>\n<body>\n<div class=\"wrapper\">\n<header>\n<h2 class=\"title\">\nAlibaba: Munger Is Not The Thesis\n</h2>\n\n<h4 class=\"meta\">\n\n\n2022-04-18 13:16 GMT+8&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href=https://seekingalpha.com/article/4501707-alibaba-munger-not-thesis><strong>Seeking Alpha</strong></a>\n\n\n</h4>\n\n</header>\n<article>\n<div>\n<p>SummaryRecently the Daily Journal's 13F revealed that the company trimmed its Alibaba position by 50%.It isn't necessarily the case that former Chairman Charlie Munger sold due to weakening conviction...</p>\n\n<a href=\"https://seekingalpha.com/article/4501707-alibaba-munger-not-thesis\">Web Link</a>\n\n</div>\n\n\n</article>\n</div>\n</body>\n</html>\n","type":0,"thumbnail":"","relate_stocks":{"BABA":"阿里巴巴"},"source_url":"https://seekingalpha.com/article/4501707-alibaba-munger-not-thesis","is_english":true,"share_image_url":"https://static.laohu8.com/e9f99090a1c2ed51c021029395664489","article_id":"1110595663","content_text":"SummaryRecently the Daily Journal's 13F revealed that the company trimmed its Alibaba position by 50%.It isn't necessarily the case that former Chairman Charlie Munger sold due to weakening conviction on BABA stock itself.However, Munger IS out of the picture in one very real way: he is no longer the Daily Journal's Chairman.For this reason, Alibaba can no longer be considered a Munger copy trade.In this article, I develop a fundamentals-based thesis for those who cloned Munger and now aren't sure what to do.Charlie Munger’s Alibaba Group (NYSE:BABA) investment was the talk of the town last week. In its Q1 13F, the Daily Journal Corp (DJCO) revealed that it had sold 50% of its stake in the Chinese tech company, after several quarters of averaging down. It wasn’t immediately clear whether Munger himself made the decision to sell the shares, as he had stepped down just days before the end of the quarter. Tu To was elected to serve as the company’s CFO on March 22. She signed all of the company’s SEC filings from the 22nd onward.There are many reasons why Munger (or somebody else) might have chosen to sell Alibaba. Not all of them necessarily reflect lower conviction in the stock. It’s possible that DJCO converted some of its NYSE shares to Hong Kong shares, or sold to cover a margin loan. Munger hasn’t spoken on the matter publicly yet, nor have any other DJCO officers, so we don’t know.Charlie Munger is thought to have influenced many investors who bought BABA stock in 2021. He began buying the stock around $226, averaging down after that. Many other investors made similar moves. It was shortly after Munger’s first 13F featuring Alibaba that internet communities focused on BABA really started to take off. Some were founded just days after the release.Naturally, Munger’s apparent sale made a big splash. BABA has always been at least partially a Munger clone trade, and it appears that Munger’s conviction in the stock has diminished. Shortly after the 13F was released, investors took to Twitter offering opinions and running polls asking others about what had happened.We may never know. But it doesn’t matter, because BABA ceased being a Munger clone trade long before the 13F came out. When Munger stepped down as Chairman of the Daily Journal, it created ambiguity as to the actual level of influence he will exercise over the firm’s portfolio going forward. The DJCO portfolio is no longer a Munger portfolio–or at least, not 100% a Munger portfolio. For this reason, investors will need a better thesis than “clone Munger because he is good.” In this article, I will attempt to advance such a thesis, based on valuation, competitive position and China's economic growth. First, though, let’s examine why it will not be possible to clone “Munger’s” BABA trades in future quarters.Why Munger Can’t be Cloned AnymoreThere are two reasons why it is impossible to clone Munger’s future BABA trades:Munger is no longer Chairman of the Daily Journal.Some of DJCO’s potential trades are impossible to confirm.The first of these is easy enough to explain. When Munger was Chairman of the Daily Journal, he managed the investment portfolio. Now that he is no longer Chairman, he simply has the duties of a director. Munger could still volunteer to manage the portfolio, but the ultimate decisions would fall on Steven Myhill-Jones, the new CEO, or Tu To, the new CFO. The SEC filings announcing these new hires didn't say who'd manage the portfolio.The second reason why Munger can’t be cloned now is because some of his potential trades wouldn’t have to be disclosed. Munger is well known for not telling investors more than he has to. If he simply converted some of his NYSE ADRs to Hong Kong shares, as some think he did, then he is no longer under the obligation to report all of his holdings. As the SEC website states, you don’t have to disclose foreign listed shares in a 13F, even if your position is massive.What all this means is that cloning Munger’s BABA trades won’t be possible going forward. For those whose BABA position was little more than a Munger copycat, that has got to sting. Fortunately, the fundamentals-based thesis on the stock is not that difficult to comprehend, and can be explained in terms of four basic principles. In the next section I will explain that case in detail.The Bullish Thesis on BABAA strong bullish thesis on BABA can be built on four pillars:China’s economy.BABA’s competitive position.Financial health.Valuation.I’ll look at each of these factors one by one, starting with China’s economyChina’s EconomyDespite the negative headlines you’re seeing these days, China’s economy is very strong. Its GDP growth was 8.1% in 2021. GDP has grown at 7.4% CAGR over 10 years. In 2020, when many countries entered recessions, China’s growth merely decelerated to 2.2%. With all of this growth, you might think that China is pumping itself full of debt. But think again! At 66.8, China’s government debt as a percentage of GDP is lower than that of the U.S., Canada, and the Eurozone. You may have heard stories about China’s “debt problem,” and claims of a 250% debt to GDP ratio. The figure is correct but it includes all debt, government and private. China’s government debt–the kind used to pay for fiscal stimulus–is low as a percentage of GDP. So China is growing very quickly and is fiscally sound enough to stimulate its economy should stimulation become necessary.BABA’s Competitive PositionAs we’ve seen, China has a high growth economy–the kind of economy that a company wants to operate in. That’s a great start but we still need to know about BABA’s competitive position.As an eCommerce company, BABA has few rivals of similar scale. JD.com (JD) technically does more revenue than BABA does, but it has much smaller margins. It could beat Alibaba on scale but probably not on profitability. JD holds and sells inventory. It’s hard to beat a “platform” company like BABA when you have inventory costs. It eats into margins.Pinduoduo (PDD) has been cited as a potential competitor to BABA but there’s just not much evidence of PDD moving beyond agricultural goods. Its group buying model has proven popular in China, but until it moves into other verticals, it’s not competing with huge chunks of Alibaba’s business.Tencent (OTCPK:TCEHY) competes with BABA in one limited way: it has a payment app. The Chinese government forced BABA and Tencent to accept each other’s payment apps last year. So the competition between these two companies for share of payments has indeed increased.BABA’s FinancialsAlibaba’s long-term financials are excellent. The most recent calendar year was a bit of a departure from the long term trend, but that could turn around.According to Seeking Alpha Quant, BABA’s five year CAGR growth rates in revenue, earnings and cash flows are:Revenue: 42%.Net income: 11.3%.Diluted EPS: 9.8%.Free cash flow: 13.66%.These are pretty solid metrics. They were all much higher prior to this year, but the 2021 Chinese tech crackdown caused last year’s numbers to suffer. BABA did take some new costs in 2021, like a $2.8 billion fine and a higher tax rate. However, the fine was non-recurring and the higher tax rate could be “outgrown” with enough quarters of strong revenue gains.At any rate, Alibaba has more than enough financial strength to ride out a few lacklustre quarters. Its balance sheet is one of the strongest in the world, boasting eye-popping metrics like:$276 billion in assets.$100 billion in liabilities.$176 billion in equity.$45 billion in cash.About $20 billion in debt (calculated from $5.09 billion in bonds $14.85 billion in long term bank loans).$105 billion in current assets.$64 billion in current liabilities.A 0.2 debt to equity ratio.A 1.64 current ratio.So we have debt that is very low as a proportion of shareholder equity, and high liquidity. Even BABA’s cash and equivalents outstrip its long term debt! This suggests a very solid balance sheet and a second-to-none ability to ride out a crisis.ValuationValuation has always been one of the pillars on which the BABA bull case has rested. BABA stock is very cheap by almost every multiple you can think of. Some of its most encouraging value metrics include:Adjusted P/E: 11.Price/sales: 1.96.Price/book: 1.67.Price/operating cash flow: 9.37.All of these multiples are comparatively low for the tech sector. For comparison, Amazon (AMZN), the closest comparable U.S. company, has a 46 adjusted P/E ratio.BABA’s GAAP P/E ratio (25) is a little high, but the most recent quarter included large unrealized losses on the company’s stock portfolio. Adjusted earnings and cash from operations are more closely related to the company’s operating performance, and not surprisingly, they were much higher than GAAP earnings. This isn’t just selective choice of non-GAAP measures either: operating cash flow is a GAAP metric and Alibaba reports in accordance with U.S. GAAP.As we’ve seen, Alibaba is cheap, profitable, and has high historical growth. Certainly this stock has many things to recommend it, even after Charlie Munger rode off into the sunset. However, there are still risks and challenges to the bullish thesis on Alibaba stock. These are real risks that investors will need to keep in mind. But on balance, Alibaba looks like a solid value play today. It’s still growing its revenue, its cloud business is inching toward profitability, and its valuation is cheaper than ever before. On the whole, it looks like a sweet deal – with or without Munger on board.","news_type":1},"isVote":1,"likeStatus":false,"favoriteStatus":false,"reportStatus":false,"tweetType":1,"langContent":"EN"}],"hasMoreComments":true,"newsSizeData":{"likeSize":218,"commentSize":23,"repostSize":0,"favoriteSize":6,"likeStatus":false,"favoriteStatus":false}}