Is Alibaba Stock A Buy Right Now? Here's What Earnings, Chart Show

When it comes to liquid, megacap stocks in China, it's hard to find a more compelling name than Alibaba (BABA). Alibaba stock has been a big winner since its IPO in September 2014.

Alibaba, with a market capitalization approaching $500 billion, has been rallying right along with the Shanghai Composite index, which is up 28% year to date. That compares with a 37% advance for Alibaba stock. The company has been able to stay in growth mode as it expands beyond e-commerce.

Alibaba Stock Fundamental Analysis

Earnings growth has slowed in recent quarters, but that's due to increased spending by Alibaba. What's impressive is that the company continues to deliver high double-digit sales growth, ranging from 34% to 76% in the past four quarters.
Full-year earnings per share are expected to rise 10% this year and accelerate in 2020, up 22%.
In its latest reported quarter, earnings per share increased 9% from the year-ago quarter to $1.78 a share, according to William O'Neil + Co. data. Sales rose 334% to $17.1 billion.
Annual return on equity in 2018 was stellar at 25.7%, giving it a top-notch SMR Rating of A.
When Alibaba reported Q4 results in January, revenue from its core e-commerce operations rose 40% to $14.95 billion. Revenue at its cloud-computing business jumped 84% to $962 million.
Alibaba ended the quarter with 699 million mobile monthly active users, up 33 million from Q3.