Alibaba Investors Ought To Pay Attention To Currency Risk

EU and US Futures are contrasted, with US futures in the red due to bad quarterly reports. The collapse of the markets in China does not seem to affect the European and US stock exchanges at the moment.

About three quarters of the S&P 500 companies that published the quarterly earnings beat expectations in terms of earnings per share, on average, exceeded expectations by 2.5%, well below the average of the last five years, equal to 7.8%. Still, yesterday some Blue chips like Google (NASDAQ:GOOGL) underperformed.

The United States 10-Year Treasury Note is trading at 4.15%, up from 4.25% on Friday. Real interest rates also dropped significantly, to 1.63% from 1.80%. Inflation expectations are at 2.50%.

I have been talking about Alibaba (NYSE:BABA) shares for over a year, and since then, I have urged investors to wisely evaluate all indications that suggested buying the stock in the $110 area a few months ago, deceived by the company's high growth.

Those who have been fooled now find themselves with a loss of almost 50%. The stock will remain under pressure until Chinese President Xi Jinping leaves office.

Recently, we learned that the government has hit Alibaba with huge fines and that relations with Jack Ma, the founder, are terrible.

Also, in his speech at the congress, Xi called for 'regulating the wealth accumulation mechanism,' which was seen as a stance against the country's most influential businessmen.

Xi also appointed the new standing committee of the Politburo, the government's most powerful decision-making body, rallying his loyalists.

More business-friendly figures familiar to Western markets, such as Premier Li Keqiang and Trade Representative Liu He, have been removed from office. Another underrated aspect is currency risk.

The Chinese currency has been in free fall recently, especially against the dollar. Analyzing the balance sheet of Alibaba, it is possible to deduce that 86% of the turnover comes from internal sources.

This means that Alibaba obviously makes most of its sales from Chinese buyers. Therefore, if the Chinese currency continues to devalue, we will see the growth of the revenues and profits of the company decrease once converted into dollars.

So what to do if you have Alibaba shares and are at a loss?

You can decide to close and collect the loss and bet on another Chinese stock at a deep discount, analyzed by me, with management on good terms with the Chinese government, which makes a difference in these cases.

Doubling down on a losing trade is almost never a good idea, as losses can also be recovered with other securities. You should never be stubborn in these cases.