Zacks Research Downgrades Alibaba Group (NYSE:BABA) to Strong Sell

Alibaba Group (NYSE:BABA) was downgraded by stock analysts at Zacks Research from a “hold” rating to a “strong sell” rating in a research note issued to investors on Wednesday,Zacks.com reports.

BABA has been the subject of a number of other research reports. DZ Bank downgraded Alibaba Group from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating and set a $135.00 target price for the company. in a report on Friday, March 20th. Arete Research raised Alibaba Group from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and set a $190.00 target price for the company in a report on Wednesday, January 21st. Erste Group Bank downgraded Alibaba Group from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a report on Wednesday, February 18th. Jefferies Financial Group decreased their target price on Alibaba Group from $225.00 to $212.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a report on Thursday, March 19th. Finally, Argus raised Alibaba Group to a “hold” rating in a report on Tuesday, March 24th. Sixteen investment analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, five have issued a Hold rating and one has issued a Sell rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the stock presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $187.68.

Alibaba Group Price Performance

Shares of NYSE BABA opened at $131.65 on Wednesday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.22, a quick ratio of 1.33 and a current ratio of 1.33. Alibaba Group has a fifty-two week low of $103.71 and a fifty-two week high of $192.67. The company has a market cap of $314.88 billion, a PE ratio of 24.84, a P/E/G ratio of 2.45 and a beta of 0.50. The business has a 50-day simple moving average of $135.36 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $152.88.

Alibaba Group (NYSE:BABA) last released its earnings results on Saturday, February 14th. The specialty retailer reported $0.13 EPS for the quarter. Alibaba Group had a return on equity of 7.43% and a net margin of 9.12%.The firm had revenue of $40.71 billion during the quarter. As a group, equities analysts expect that Alibaba Group will post 4.39 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Institutional Trading of Alibaba Group

A number of institutional investors and hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in the business. SJS Investment Consulting Inc. increased its position in shares of Alibaba Group by 15,000.0% in the first quarter. SJS Investment Consulting Inc. now owns 302 shares of the specialty retailer’s stock valued at $38,000 after buying an additional 300 shares in the last quarter. Apollon Wealth Management LLC increased its position in shares of Alibaba Group by 3.0% during the first quarter. Apollon Wealth Management LLC now owns 5,469 shares of the specialty retailer’s stock worth $686,000 after purchasing an additional 159 shares in the last quarter. Formidable Asset Management LLC increased its position in shares of Alibaba Group by 23.9% during the first quarter. Formidable Asset Management LLC now owns 60,442 shares of the specialty retailer’s stock worth $7,583,000 after purchasing an additional 11,663 shares in the last quarter. MFA Wealth Services increased its position in shares of Alibaba Group by 3.7% during the first quarter. MFA Wealth Services now owns 2,887 shares of the specialty retailer’s stock worth $362,000 after purchasing an additional 104 shares in the last quarter. Finally, ABN AMRO Bank N.V. increased its position in shares of Alibaba Group by 6.2% during the first quarter. ABN AMRO Bank N.V. now owns 3,994 shares of the specialty retailer’s stock worth $504,000 after purchasing an additional 234 shares in the last quarter. 13.47% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Alibaba Group News Roundup

Here are the key news stories impacting Alibaba Group this week:

• Positive Sentiment: Alibaba is reportedly in advanced talks with Tencent to invest in Chinese AI startup DeepSeek, a move that would accelerate Alibaba’s AI capabilities and signal a strategic bet on foundation models and talent. Read More.
• Positive Sentiment: Alibaba is expanding Qwen AI into cars (Beijing auto show) to enable voice ordering, bookings and payments — a commercialization path that could open new enterprise revenue and sticky consumer use cases. Read More.
• Positive Sentiment: Qwen has been opened to partners such as China Eastern, allowing flight search and booking via natural language — evidence Alibaba is pushing agentic AI integrations that can be monetized across services. Read More.
• Positive Sentiment: Alibaba Cloud is partnering to make Qwen models accessible on-chain to AI agents (0G collaboration), which could broaden developer usage and enterprise adoption in web3/agentic workflows. Read More.
• Neutral Sentiment: DeepSeek released a V4 preview, escalating the open-source AI arms race in China; more capable open models increase competition but also validate the market Alibaba is investing in. Read More.
• Neutral Sentiment: Tencent and other rivals are unveiling upgraded models, intensifying competition in China’s AI stack; that raises the bar for product differentiation but is not an immediate revenue threat. Read More.
• Negative Sentiment: Zacks Research downgraded Alibaba from “hold” to “strong sell,” a near-term catalyst that can pressure sentiment and trading activity. Read More.
• Negative Sentiment: Coverage has noted increasing regulatory scrutiny of China’s large platforms as they expand data-rich, AI-driven services — a structural risk that could affect monetization and speed of rollout. Read More.

About Alibaba Group

Alibaba Group Holding Limited is a Chinese multinational conglomerate founded in 1999 in Hangzhou, China, by Jack Ma and a group of co‑founders. The company built its business around internet-based commerce and related services and has grown into one of the largest e-commerce and technology companies in the world. Alibaba completed a high‑profile initial public offering on the New York Stock Exchange in 2014.

The company operates a portfolio of online marketplaces and platforms serving different customer segments: Alibaba.com for global and domestic B2B trade, Taobao for consumer-to-consumer shopping, and Tmall for brand and retailer storefronts targeted at Chinese consumers.