Taking Some Profit Off Alibaba

I rarely mention specific stocks in the past few years and is actually even less inclined to comment on my purchases and sales. Lest it garners the wrong kind of attention.

However, this particular sale of $BABA is interesting. I do think there are several lessons/reflections which might be useful to you, the reader. So here’s a bit of indulgence for me.

Investing Can Be A Roller Coaster Ride

Interestingly, $BABA is almost flat for the past 6 to 7 years.

It caught my attention in the beginning of 2020 and I started a small position at the price of $215. It then reached a high of $300 in the second half of 2020 but just a couple of months later, the price corrected by 20%, and then I decided to average down at the price of $245 on 15 Dec 2020. 

The price kept on declining and on hindsight, I got spooked. Crypto probably also took my attention away from the HK market. Amazingly, 3 years would have passed the next time I averaged down on 9 Jan 2024 when I added at the price of $70. It would truly have been really painful if I had averaged down every time there was a 20% decline from 2021.

The HK portfolio was in a deep sea of red in 2024 with no respite in sight. 1.5 years later, it’s now finally bank in the green. The journey is not for the faint-hearted though.

And just to prove I am not a good stock picker, 3067, 2318, 69, 2800 continues to be in the red even after the recent run-up in prices.

It Pays To Keep Attention

Even though I barely blogged in 2025, I am still consuming alot of financial content, whether it is reading or watching YouTube videos. Whether it’s healthy or not, I find it hard to abstain completely. Perversely, it is something I truly enjoy.

So when a prominent YouTuber and a prominent blogger both shilled $BABA at around the $100 level in June 2025, I was naturally all ears. On 3 July 2025, I made the rare decision to average up at $105.

Want to know the level of detail I keep up to?

Apparently I know the YouTuber was quite disgusted at the blogger for joining the $BABA bandwagon that he warned viewers off the stock at the $110 or $120 levels. Pretty absurd to me since he was going against his own interest. Admittedly, he did give some good reasons against SDRs but the blogger probably felt heckled.

So much so that he swore off creating content for a few months until a recent blogpost. And when the Youtuber got assaulted by a neighbour, my intuition knew that $BABA was going to chiong because of these negative events. The universe does work in a perverse sort of way to establish “fairness”.

Maybe you know who I am talking about, maybe you don’t. But I am indeed entertained and grateful to them for helping me to make some dough.

Selling Is A Very Personal Decision

Everybody buys because of one reason, they think the price is going to go up. But people can sell for 101 different reasons.

Event though I think there are good odds $BABA could rise higher due to momentum, I have decided to take some profits at this level. I do believe stocks or even some indices could rise by as much as 50% before we see a meaningful correction.

But with exams for secondary school students mostly over, I am transiting to winter or my lean income months (which probably explains why I am typing away on this much neglected platform). Good to have more cash so I can spend a bit more frivolously when I have more free time.

I also have intention to simplify my investments and hold fewer stocks in the coming years. So I do not mind some harvesting and pruning right now. So there, that’s my personal context for selling.

Thank you for reading and in case you are not aware, none of the above is written by AI.