Americans Are Still Undervaluing Alibaba Stock (Despite Its 115% YTD Gain)

Amazon.com Inc. (Nasdaq: AMZN) may no longer be the top e-commerce company in the world. And that's making Alibaba stock a wealth-creating machine...

Money Morning Executive Editor William Patalon says China's largest retailer, Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. (NYSE: BABA), is fast becoming the global e-commerce king.

Alibaba stock

The BABA IPO was held on Sept. 18, 2014, and with shares issued at $68, the IPO raised $21.8 billion. Alibaba became the biggest U.S. IPO in history, easily surpassing those of Visa Inc. (NYSE: V) and Facebook Inc. (Nasdaq: FB).

Patalon first recommended Alibaba stock before it went public, and investors have more than doubled their money after the IPO. BABA stock is up more than 100% since Patalon first recommended it.

And now he's making an even bolder forecast...

Wall Street "Experts" Are Still Underestimating Alibaba Stock

Alibaba is the sixth-largest retailer in the world right now and is often called "the Amazon of China." While that is high praise, it actually undersells Alibaba's real potential.

This past Nov. 11 was China's "Singles' Day," one of the biggest shopping days in the world. Bigger than Black Friday and Cyber Monday combined.

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And this year Alibaba absolutely crushed it, racking up over $25.3 billion in sales.

Check out the numbers BABA did during the 24 hours of Singles' Day:

  • Sales were up 42% from the $17.8 billion the company made last year.
  • It did nearly four times the revenue of Black Friday and Cyber Monday ($6.76 billion) combined.
  • Revenue added up to more than the GDP of Iceland.
  • It dominated the $1 billion Amazon moved during its most recent "Prime Day" - the
    company's biggest sales day ever.

But that was just the bottom line. Look at these supporting numbers with regard to Alibaba's ability to take, process, and fulfill those orders:

  • Alibaba offered 15 million products for sale.
  • It featured 140,000 different brands.
  • It cleared $1 billion (the amount Amazon cleared in a day) in its first two minutes.
  • At one point, Alibaba was processing 325,000 orders per second.
  • It delivered its first order within 13 minutes of purchase.
  • It took 812 million orders that will be delivered in the next few days.
  • It processed 1.48 billion orders through Alipay, the Chinese version of PayPal, and the
    world's No. 1 mobile payment platform
  • And Alibaba said that 90% of its orders came via mobile phones - up from 82% last year and way above the 30% number for Black Friday here in the United States last year.

But even after Alibaba stock has gained more than 115% this year to date, Wall Street still undervalues the stock.

And now Patalon says this is a "single-stock wealth machine." Here's why...

Why Alibaba Is the "One" Stock to Own

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As good as Alibaba's Singles' Day sales were, the company is also integrating both virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) into the shopping experience it offered consumers.

This year, BABA used Big Data to absorb even more of China's massive retail market.

Most investors realize that the Chinese market is big and growing. However, they probably do not understand just how big it is and how fast it is growing.

Forbes reported that just the Chinese middle class is 54% larger than the entire U.S. population (325 million). Already worth $6 trillion, China should account for 60% of global e-commerce by the end of the decade. And Alibaba already controls more than 51% of that.

There's a new business adage for consumer products firms that says "If you win China, you win the world."  Alibaba is winning China.

Doubters might think a stock that is up 115% this year alone is overpriced, but the company has a long history of proving them wrong.

And Patalon thinks the potential growth future for the dominant player in the massive Chinese economy is simply staggering.

"Every single share of Alibaba that you buy today for $185 will be worth more than $2.1 million four-plus decades from now," Patalon said.

That means the triple-digit returns since Patalon first recommended the stock are merely a "trickle" of cash compared to what's coming next.

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