BABA Stock: Price Action & The Unvarnished Truth

Alibaba's AI Dreams and Military Nightmares: Can the Cloud Cover the Cracks?

Alright, let's talk about Alibaba, or baba stock price as the kids on the internet call it. For months, it felt like everyone was high-fiving themselves over BABA's comeback story. Up 84% year-to-date, baby! All that talk about their fancy AI cloud unit and super-fast delivery — felt like they were finally shaking off the old regulatory shackles, didn't it? Then November rolled around, and suddenly, the party record skipped. Big time.

First, a little dip on the 12th, nothing too crazy, just a 3.07% slide. But then, November 14th hit like a cold shower. Alibaba stock plunged another 4.75%, wiping out a chunk of that hard-won gain. Why? Because the Financial Times dropped a bombshell, alleging Alibaba was buddy-buddy with the Chinese military and the People’s Liberation Army, giving them tech support and customer data access. Naturally, Alibaba’s denial was swift: "False! Leaked to malign us!" Give me a break. Do we actually believe a company facing these kinds of allegations can just wave its hand and declare them 'false' without a shred of proof, especially when the FT report itself wasn't independently verified? It's like watching a magician try to disappear their own hand right after they've been caught with it in the cookie jar... you just ain't buying it.

The AI Analyst vs. Wall Street's Rose-Tinted Glasses

Here's where it gets even spicier. Amidst this chaos, some AI analyst named Rina Curatex – apparently powered by OpenAI-4o, because of course there's an AI involved now – swooped in and downgraded BABA from a "Buy" to a "Neutral". Price target slashed from $205 to a measly $176. That's an 8.23% upside, if you're feeling optimistic.

But then you've got the old guard on Wall Street, the human analysts, still clinging to an average target price that suggests a whopping 24% upside. Twenty-four percent! It's like they're looking at the same stock through different ends of a telescope. One's seeing a clear path to recovery, the other's squinting at a blurry mess. Who's right? My money's on the machine, honestly. Not because I trust AI more, but because it probably hasn't had its judgment clouded by years of corporate schmoozing and the promise of future investment banking deals. Can an algorithm really be bought off? That’s a question for another day, I guess. But what does it say about the human element when the bots are calling out the crap faster than the pros?

This whole "AI Mode" thing Alibaba rolled out to help merchants reduce sourcing time? Sounds great on paper, another feather in their "AI dreams" cap. But when your stock is tanking because of alleged military ties, all the clever algorithms in the world ain't gonna fix a fundamental trust issue. It's like putting a fresh coat of paint on a house that's got termites eating the foundation. Looks good from the street, but the whole damn thing could collapse.

The Cracks Are Showing, Earnings or Not

Let's talk numbers, because that's where the rubber meets the road. Alibaba is set to report its Q2 FY26 earnings on November 25th. Analysts are bracing for an EPS of $0.66, which is a stomach-churning 69.3% drop year-over-year. Revenue's only expected to tick up a measly 2.17% to $34.43 billion. And for the full year? Earnings projected down 27.08%. Down. Not up, not flat... down.

Meanwhile, the stock still trades at a premium. Its Forward P/E is 25.24, higher than the industry average of 21.83. Same with its PEG ratio: 1.99 versus the industry's 1.5. So, you're paying more for a company that's got serious allegations hanging over its head, slowing growth, and a "Strong Sell" Zacks Rank. What are we actually paying for here? The hope that the denials are true and the growth magically reappears? The market's already started pulling back, with baba stock price today down 0.55% over the past month, underperforming the entire Retail-Wholesale sector and the S&P 500. The shine is definitely off the apple, and it feels like there’s a worm in there, wriggling.

The 52-week range of $80.06 to $192.67 tells a story of wild swings, but right now, it feels like it's got a lot more room to fall towards that lower end than to surge back to its highs. The air's just different now. You can almost feel the tension in the trading pits, a collective holding of breath, waiting for the other shoe to drop—or for that November 25th earnings call to either confirm everyone's worst fears or, improbably, pull a rabbit out of a hat. But honestly, with a 69% EPS drop expected, it's gonna take more than a rabbit; it's gonna take a whole damn magic show. Then again, maybe I'm the crazy one here...

The Cloud's Got Holes

Alibaba's got its AI dreams, sure, and they've been pushing the cloud hard. But when you've got accusations of military collaboration and data sharing, that cloud looks less like a fluffy innovation engine and more like a convenient cover for something far more opaque. Can the cloud cover the cracks? Not when those cracks are geopolitical and threaten to fundamentally erode trust. You can't just AI your way out of that.