BABA walks into its May 13 earnings print on a meaningful rally — up 17% over the past month and 6.5% on the week, closing at $140.06 — yet short sellers have spent the past six weeks quietly unwinding. That contrast defines the setup heading into the quarter.
The short-side retreat is the sharpest signal in the positioning data. Short interest has fallen roughly 11% over the past month to around 36.7 million shares, equivalent to 1.7% of the free float. That is a modest level by any standard. The borrow market reflects this: availability remains ample at around 75% of short interest, and the cost to borrow is running at just 0.58% — barely above the risk-free rate. Short sellers are not pressing an aggressive thesis here. The ORTEX short score of 51.6 is consistent with a neutral, middling conviction from the short side, ranking in the bottom quarter of the universe on both short-score rank and days-to-cover rank.
Options investors are equally relaxed ahead of the report. The put/call ratio of 0.68 is fractionally below its 20-day average of 0.69 — a z-score of roughly -0.5 — suggesting no meaningful accumulation of downside protection. That reads closer to a mild bullish skew than a hedged defensive posture, especially given that the 52-week PCR range runs as wide as 0.40 to 1.07. In short: neither the lending market nor the options market is flashing caution.
The analyst community is still broadly constructive but has been marking down targets. After the prior quarter's Q3 results in March — which sent the stock down nearly 9% on the day and a further 6.7% over the following five days — JPMorgan trimmed to $205, Barclays cut to $190, and Mizuho and Baird also lowered targets, all while maintaining positive ratings. Barclays trimmed again in April to $186. The direction of travel is target reductions with ratings held, not outright downgrades. The bull case rests on cloud computing growth and a 20% jump in daily active users following the integration of instant commerce into Taobao — along with revenue that beat estimates in the most recent quarter by roughly RMB 3 billion. Bears point to margin compression in the China e-commerce segment, negative free cash flow driven by quick-commerce investment, and EBITDA that missed consensus. Factor scores offer a notable divergence: EPS surprise ranks in the 95th percentile of the universe, and the 90-day EPS momentum rank is 88th percentile — yet 30-day EPS momentum ranks at just the 15th, suggesting near-term estimate revisions have turned cooler. The analyst return potential ranks in the 98th percentile, with consensus targets averaging around $186-$205, implying roughly 35% upside to the current price.
The May 13 print is therefore less about whether Alibaba is growing and more about whether quick-commerce investment is beginning to generate the margin recovery the Street has been waiting for — and whether the recent rally in the ADR has priced in a result the numbers can actually deliver.
See the live data behind this article on ORTEX.
Open BABA on ORTEX →ORTEX Market Intelligence content is generated by AI from a snapshot of ORTEX's proprietary data. Content is informational only and does not constitute investment advice.
