Summary
- Alibaba Group Holding Limited reported solid fiscal Q3 earnings but shares were down for the day.
- There are compelling fundamental and macroeconomic reasons to invest in BABA.
- The technical picture suggests we could head a bit lower before we continue the rally.
Thesis Summary
Alibaba Group Holding Limited (NYSE: BABA) has recently released its latest results, and despite a beat, the company is down on the day.
Despite the market’s skepticism, I see a discounted company that has held up well during hard times. Add to this the favorable macroeconomic environment in China and the positive outlook from a technical perspective, and you have a screaming buy.
There’s always going to be a risk with Chinese stocks, but Alibaba is a risk worth taking.
Recent Earnings
Alibaba released its Q4 earnings on Thursday morning, beating on revenue by $40 million and non-GAAP EPS by $0.39. The stock was down on the day, but this is in line with the broader Chinese tech stocks.
Revenues(Earnings Report)
Revenues are flat compared to last year, but we can see that margins improved substantially. Indeed, the operating margin is up 396%, but this comes with an asterisk, or in this case, that footnote denoted by the small number 3.
The company did not report impairment charges of RMB 22,427 attributable to the Digital media and entertainment segment. Once you take this into account, the real Operating Income should be closer to RMB 12,500, which is an increase of 78%. Still not a bad number, though. Now let’s move on to the segment breakdown:
Segment Results(Earnings Report)
We can see that China commerce was down 1% YoY, while Cainiao saw the biggest growth, followed by local consumer services. It’s also worth noting International commerce, Local consumer services, and even Cainiao have improved their EBITA margin.
All in all, I would say that the company has done well to maintain its revenues while increasing profitability.
Forward Outlook
Clearly, BABA has come from a tough year, where focusing on reigning in costs was the right thing to do. Moving forward, though, what can we expect? Will the company be able to pull on any more growth levers, and can we expect profitability to keep increasing?
When asked about growth, CFO Toby Xu has this to say:
First, indeed, over the past 20-plus years, the major opportunities for us that we see have been around applying digital technology to commerce, logistics and cloud computing. And this is indeed the long-term strategy of Alibaba. We remain firmly committed, as always, to our 3 core strategies around consumption, cloud and globalization.
Source: earnings call.
Chu then went on to throw out some encouraging numbers regarding domestic consumption and spending on technology. IT spending in China is 1% of GDP compared to 5% in the U.S. When it comes to cloud spending within this sector, the difference is even larger.
This is certainly a compelling point. China has some work to do in terms of digitalization, and if Alibaba can be the main driver, they will do well.
In terms of costs, there wasn’t much talk on the earnings call, which was more focused on growth and new technologies like AI. It appears that returning to growth at this point is more important to Alibaba than increasing profitability.
Given the ample opportunities in the Chinese market, this seems like the right approach.
Risks and Other considerations
Investing in China always carries a risk, we are well aware, but I think now is a good time to diversify, especially given the separation in monetary policy between the Federal Reserve and the PBoC.
China has recently injected $29 billion into the system through its medium-term lending facility, and there ismore to come.
Robin Xing, Morgan Stanley's chief China economist, said the country's monetary policy is expected to stay relatively accommodative throughout this year to ensure a steady economic recovery from COVID-19, without a sharp tightening of policy stance…
Pointing to the policy stance of keeping monetary conditions accommodative, the PBOC injected a net 199 billion yuan ($29 billion) in liquidity via its medium-term lending facility operation on Wednesday, marking the third consecutive month of net injection.
Source: Chinadaily.
I covered this ina recent article. The main point here is that China is turning on the liquidity tap, hard, and this is very good for markets, and especially for Chinese equities.
Technical Analysis
The technical picture suggests we could dip a bit lower before we rally.
Alibaba TA(Author's work)
Since Alibaba found a bottom at $57, the stock has rallied impulsively in what we can identify as a five-wave diagonal. With the latest selloff, we have just tapped the 38.2% retracement and found support at the 200-day MA. Worth mentioning also is that the RSI is nearing oversold. I’d expect to see a bounce in the short term. Ultimately, a more reliable bottom could be found as we complete this ABC structure into the $84-$77 level.
Still, trading today at $94, we could be quite close to the bottom, and this is a good point to start DCA.
Takeaway
All in all, Alibaba Group Holding Limited is still a good company, and I see it as potentially one of the biggest winners from the actions of the PBoC. Now is a good time to buy Alibaba Group Holding Limited, and if we do get to my lower target of $77, I’ll be doubling down on this bet.