US Exceptionalism Over? Alibaba Soars On AI As US-China Tech Valuation Gap "Must Narrow"

Hong Kong stocks surged overnight after Alibaba reported a staggering 239% year-over-year jump in net profit for the final quarter of 2024. CEO Eddie Wu credited the strong performance to explosive growth in the company's cloud business and a surge in artificial intelligence investments over the last six quarters.

Goldman's Fred Yin and Shubham Ghosh provided clients this morning with further insights on Alibaba and the apparent fading of US exceptionalism as attention shifts to tech stocks in China and Hong Kong:

HK shares exploded higher today after Alibaba results boosted tech optimism further, HSI +4% had its best one-day return since Oct 2024 while HSTECH +6.5% managed to close out its 6th weekly gain in a row, the longest such run in 5 years. Alibaba +14.6% surged on a clean beat with strong showings from both e-comm and cloud segments, and CEO says AGI is now the company's "primary objective"...the stock is now up over 60% YTD.