It's the Amazon of China. Place your bet on either one. They both have insane sales figures but neither one can seem to make a decent sales margin.
I can't imagine operating the way they do. It doesn't make sense in the long term. Ask Walmart about low margins over a long term work. It just doesn't make sense.
After reading about how the company is structured there ain't no way I'd buy in. Jack Ma can legally take the money and run.
I don't think that can be true for a public ally traded company...
Hong Kong stock exchange refused to list it due to its corporate structure. Not good enough for it's own country's stock exchange, but NYSE will take it
Alibaba
What do you know about it; Is it going to soar or take a dump? I had never heard about it until recently.
I don't know much about Alibaba other than the fact it's supposed to dominate ecommerce in China. I first heard about the company about 10 years ago when Baidu went public. Baidu was to be the Google of China, and Alibaba the Amazon/Ebay of China. I didn't believe the hype or the story. I traded Baidu long/short when Baidu was $4 billion company up to $16 billion. Looking back I wish I had just closed my eyes and bought and held Baidu shares.
I had really negative impression of Alibaba when I first heard about it years ago because it sounded lot like Commerce One, Ariba, Internet Capital Group, and host of other B2B companies that got hyped up and had crazy runup in stock price. All came crashing down and burned. It didn't help when I googled a product and it showed Alibaba listing with product order form similar to B2B. But it looks like Alibaba is all grown up now. You can't ignore its real sales and profits. The company is making lot of money now and still growing really fast. I don't know how successful it will be outside of China but I don't think that's as important. As long as it's the dominant player in China, it will be fine.
I did buy some shares of Alibaba to trade. I couldn't resist the action and the free money.
It's the Amazon of China. Place your bet on either one. They both have insane sales figures but neither one can seem to make a decent sales margin.
I can't imagine operating the way they do. It doesn't make sense in the long term. Ask Walmart about low margins over a long term work. It just doesn't make sense.
Interesting tidbit is the clause that the Government of China could pull all of Alibaba's money in a heartbeat.
A lot of people would lose a lot of money in an instant including a lot of Americans.
Interesting tidbit is the clause that the Government of China could pull all of Alibaba's money in a heartbeat.
A lot of people would lose a lot of money in an instant including a lot of Americans.
I am reasonably sure China will pull this money out from them at some point.
It's just the thing human nature has to do.
Alibaba has 40%+ gross margin. It's nothing like Amazon other than both companies dominate eCommerce in their respective countries. Alibaba has like 80% market share in China. That will come down but the overall market is growing rapidly. If anything, investors are undervaluing Alibaba given its growth rate and market domination.
I worry less about that than I do about Alibaba's numbers. I have natural distrust of Chinese numbers and accounting. I think lot of companies lie and fake numbers. Alibaba's numbers and growth are so amazing that it's hard to believe it can be 100% real. But I'm going to assume plenty of smart people went and checked Alibaba books. Alibaba growth story is the story on growth of internet/mobile commerce in China. If you buy Alibaba shares, you're sort of betting on continued internet/mobile Ecommerce in China since Alibaba controls like 80% of that market. Alibaba made $2 billion+ in profits last quarter. That's no chump change.
yep, it seems fishy, i am not buying BABA
of course i only buy index funds anyway, but still
i wouldnt buy this even if i was considering individual securities
edit: this may be the first time ever that i have agreed with dmcowen