Technology

What a Trump Presidency Could Mean for Alibaba

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Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. (NYSE: BABA) shares fell in Wednesday’s regular trading session. Shares are facing increased pressure after it was announced that Trump won the U.S. presidency.

Essentially this company could be affected by increased trade barriers between the United States and China. Trump made one of the key platforms of his campaign that he was a “free trader” and that he didn’t agree with the currency manipulation that took place overseas in China.

What Wedbush Equity research believes is that a result of the Trump presidency could be increased taxes on goods from China. These higher tariffs on Chinese goods could have an impact on Aliexpress sales, and conversely higher tariffs on U.S. goods could hurt Tmall Global sales in China.

The firm further believes that should the Chinese economy be hurt by trade sanctions from the United States, a weakening Chinese consumer could also pressure Alibaba’s results. Wedbush has a Neutral rating with a $90 price target.

The company isn’t set to report its fiscal third-quarter results until January, but the consensus estimates from Thomson Reuters are calling for per-share earnings of $1.14 and $7.39 billion in revenue. In the same period of last year, it had $6.43 per share in earnings and $35.54 billion in revenue.

Excluding Wednesday’s move, Alibaba has outperformed the broad markets, with the stock up 22% year to date. Over the past 52 weeks, the number is identical.

Shares of Alibaba were trading down 3% at $96.82 on Wednesday, with a consensus analyst price target of $119.75 and a 52-week trading range of $59.25 to $109.87.

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