Alibaba Group Holding Ltd (NYSE:BABA) stock traded in the green for the most part of last week (May 1-May 5). The stock dodged any violent price movements and maintained stability around the $90 bracket. Shares closed Friday’s trading session with a modest rise of 0.12% at $90.70, and traded with a low of $90.46 and a high of $91.6. Alibaba stock had a market cap of $226.37 billion at the closing bell on Friday.
Bidness Etc looks at the factors that contributed to price movements in Alibaba stock last week.
Recent News
On Friday, Alibaba announced that the company was appointing Eric Pelletier as Vice President, Head of International Government Affairs in the city of Washington. Citing information from an inside source, Bloomberg explained that the appointment was aimed at gathering up a team to build relationships with government officials in several countries. The company’s Senior Vice President, Head of International Corporate Affairs, Jim Wilkinson, depicted optimism about the appointment in a statement to Business Wire. Mr. Wilkinson said: “Eric is a proven leader who is respected on both sides of the aisle in Washington and around the globe. There is no one better to lead Alibaba Group’s international government affairs and regulatory efforts, and Eric will be a strong addition to our international leadership team.”
Moreover, a report by the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) confirmed that Alibaba Group was investing nearly $200 million (1.2 billion yuan) for a 30% stake in China Business News, a financial TV and newspaper unit, housed under the Shanghai Media Group. The investment will enable the two companies to incorporate financial data services, optimizing Alibaba’s e-commerce database on aspects such as sales trends.
Elsewhere, Alibaba continues to battle with the sale of fake and counterfeit goods on its online platform. Based on a report published by WSJ, Alibaba has made tweaks to its model for identifying fakes. The company’s “Good Faith Takedown” program launched over more than two months ago aims to provide dedicated customer service to brands that have signed up with it. Alibaba gave a statement to the WSJ stating: “[We are] constantly enhancing and refining our anti-counterfeiting operations.” However, several experts are uncertain about the dynamics of the program, and have dubbed it as too complex. Indeed, the founder of Simone IP Services, Joe Simone told WSJ that companies are required to go through a stream of additional steps in order to report the listings of fakes; this makes the program all the more complex. Importantly, this could considerably downscale the actual number of listings.
Changes In Stock Price
Alibaba stock concluded the week with an overall rise of 1.55%. Shares rose to as much as $91.51 on the last day of trading. Friday’s closing price of $90.7, represents a discount of more than 32% to the stock’s 52-week high of $120. Shares of Alibaba had a relatively calm week of trading. Alibaba stock was seen breaking out of the $80 barrier on the very first day of trading, and remained mostly in the $90 and above category throughout the rest of the week.
Moreover, Alibaba stock managed to stay well north of the S&P 500 index, by a rough margin of just over 1%. The biggest divergence between the two took place on Friday, when both closed with a difference of 2%. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was seen replicating the cycles of the S&P 500 index last week. Hence, Alibaba stock stayed ahead of both the S&P 500 and the Dow Jones Industrial Average.