Alibaba Stock Earnings: BABA beats on top and bottom lines, shares up 4%

Alibaba (BABA stock) reported an earnings beat on top and bottom lines Thursday morning. BABA shares jumped 4.3% to $85.90 in Thursday's premarket. The company offered up results for the quarter ending in March of $1.25 in earnings per average diluted share (EPADS) on $32.188 billion in revenue. Wall Street has expected adjusted EPS of $1.08 on $29.7 billion in turnover.

Also read: Tesla Stock Deep Dive: Price target at $400 on China headwinds, margin compression, lower deliveries

Alibaba Stock News: Consumers continue to increase

“We delivered healthy results this quarter with revenue growth of 9% year-over-year. Total revenue for the fiscal year grew 19% year-over-year, despite a challenging macro environment. Our continued investments in strategic initiatives have generated promising growth momentum and improved operating efficiency,” said Toby Xu, Chief Financial Officer of Alibaba Group. “Looking ahead to fiscal year 2023, we will firmly focus on generating sustainable, high-quality revenue growth and optimizing our operating cost structure to enhance overall return amidst these uncertain times.”

Despite reducing its workforce in Russia, Alibaba was able to raise its annual active consumer figure to 1.31 billion, an increase of 28.3 million three months prior. On a GAAP basis, however, the company lost a total of $2.9 billion "primarily due to decreases in the market prices of our equity investments in publicly-traded companies, which we excluded from our non-GAAP measures."

Fellow mega-cap peer Baidu (BIDU) reported earnings per average diluted share (EPADS) of $1.77, beating consensus of $0.83. Revenue, meanwhile, arrived at $4.48 billion, $320 million ahead of the general forecast.

BABA key statistics

Alibaba Stock Forecast: A positive move higher

All in all, it was a decent quarter. Investors did not see the major drop in growth that it had been anticipating. BABA stock drifted through the 9-day moving average in the premarket and is now sandwiched right against the 20-day moving average. It briefly has risen above there. Closing above the 20-day moving average during the regular session will bring added bullish interest over the next few session and may lead to a further rally. $90 is still the kicker however.

As we stated on Wednesday: "We view BABA skeptically until it overpowers $90. That brings it to neutral in the short term. Above $94, BABA stock would look a bit more attractive as a target." Short-term support remains at $82 and $78.

BABA 4-hour chart

The author owns shares of Alibaba.

---