Alibaba Stock Shrugs Off Outperform Rating

BABA has added 34% year-to-date

Chinese multinational conglomerate Alibaba Group Holding Ltd (NYSE:BABA) is down 0.2% at $184.49 this morning, with traders seemingly brushing off the stock's latest bull rating from Macquarie. The brokerage firm earlier initiated coverage with an "outperform" rating and $231 price target, saying they are "holistically positive as Alibaba continues to build...users and services." Coming into today, all but one covering analyst carried a "buy" or "strong buy" rating, with not a single "sell" on the books.

BABA has been trending higher since finding support at the round $150 level in late May, and is now up 34% year-to-date. Support from the 20-day moving average has been firm over the past month, with the trendline capturing multiple pullbacks from the equity.

Meanwhile, data from the International Securities Exchange (ISE), Cboe Options Exchange (CBOE), and NASDAQ OMX PHLX (PHLX) shows BABA with a 10-day call/put volume ratio of 2.82, ranking in the 85th annual percentile. However, short-term speculative sentiment on BABA isn't totally euphoric; peak front-month call open interest lies at the in-the-money December 180 call.