We recently published a list of 12 Most Popular Stocks on Robinhood in 2025. In this article, we are going to take a look at where Alibaba Group Holding Limited (NYSE:BABA) stands against other most popular stocks on Robinhood in 2025.
Individual investors, often called retail investors, on platforms as Robinhood represent an increasingly influential market segment that exhibits active trading behaviors, responsiveness to trends and momentum, and collective market-moving power. Notable examples include the 2021 short squeezes in stocks that caused billions of losses to several hedge funds. In these instances, collective buying activity on Robinhood, coordinated through social media platforms, caused rapid and sharp stock price movements that could not be anticipated by professionals. The key takeaway is that even the least informed segment of investors can occasionally have the power to move the markets and drive pockets of volatility, which automatically creates opportunities for gains.
History shows that retail interest in buying stocks sparked at or immediately before market peaks, making it an indicator of potential market overvaluation and a predictor of market corrections. However, retail investors are leveraging social media, AI, and learning tools to get more informed than ever, which has led to their behavior changing over time. For instance, it was widely reported that retail investors have injected billions of dollars into US stocks during the recent stock market correction. JP Morgan mentioned that during the early April meltdown, retail investors bought a record $4.7 billion worth of stocks, the highest level in over a decade. Small-cap technology was one of the favorite sector picks of individual investors amid the meltdown, while institutional investors have increased their bets against the sector. This highlights the idea that retail investors have adopted a smarter investing strategy, which involves buying dips and undervalued stocks.
READ ALSO: 12 Best Robinhood Stocks to Buy Under $20
The big question is how one could exploit the signals communicated by the retail trading activity on platforms such as Robinhood? The answer is by investing in the same stocks that are bought by both retail and institutional investors. Buying pressure from both these market segments will inevitably lead to upward momentum in stock prices. In other words, if everyone is buying, then odds are the stock prices will move higher. Besides that, before buying, one should make sure that the economy is moving in the right direction. We believe the outlook on the US economy is becoming more optimistic than it was last month, for the following reasons:
First, news that China and the US might be moving toward starting trade negotiations is exceptionally positive in that they mitigate the largest disruptor of the stock market in the last months – the Trump Tariff Turmoil. In this regard, the reputable Yardeni Research has recently lowered its subjective odds of a recession from the previous 45% to the current 35% (lower odds of recession means higher likelihood of stronger earnings and thus higher stock prices).
Second, the better-than-expected April US employment report represents an important signal that corporations aren’t buying into the recession story and are definitely not rushing to downsize their business. According to the report, US employers added 177,000 jobs in April and the unemployment rate was unchanged at 4.2 percent, which represents a healthy level for the overall economy. This is among the main indicators used by Fed officials to make their monetary policy decisions; we believe they are likely to conclude that the US economy is in good shape.
Third, the largest and most potent segment of the stock market – the Magnificent 7 – is still doing great and is well-positioned to continue to push the overall market higher. Three of them have already beaten earnings expectations in Q1 2025. While AI may or may not directly make money for the big tech, the demand for cloud computing will inevitably rise, stimulating their earnings. The Magnificent 7 is such a large segment of the market that their strength could more than offset any weakness in industrial activity and the consumer discretionary sector, which have been sluggish year-to-date.
To sum up, our list of most popular stocks on Robinhood was created by looking at the most popular buys from retail investors, which are also supported by hedge funds. In a neutral or rising economy, we believe the odds are that these stocks will be among the best-performing due to immense buying pressure from all categories of investors.
Our Methodology
To compile our list of most popular stocks on Robinhood, we used public press releases to find the most widely bought stocks on the platform in the first four months of the year. Then we compared the list with our proprietary database of hedge funds’ ownership as of the fourth quarter of 2024, and included in the article the top 12 stocks with the largest number of hedge funds that own the stock, ranked in ascending order.
Why are we interested in the stocks that hedge funds pile into? The reason is simple: our research has shown that we can outperform the market by imitating the top stock picks of the best hedge funds. Our quarterly newsletter’s strategy selects 14 small-cap and large-cap stocks every quarter and has returned 373.4% since May 2014, beating its benchmark by 218 percentage points (see more details here).
An e-commerce platform displaying a wide range of products to customers online.
Alibaba Group Holding Limited (NYSE:BABA)
Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 107
Alibaba Group Holding Limited (NYSE:BABA), based in China, is a multinational conglomerate operating across e-commerce, retail, internet, and technology sectors. Its core businesses include China Commerce, featuring platforms like Taobao and Tmall; International Commerce, through AliExpress and Lazada; and Local Consumer Services, such as food delivery. The company also runs Cainiao for logistics, Alibaba Cloud for cloud computing services, and digital media platforms like Youku. BABA ranked first on our recent list of 10 Best Emerging Markets Stocks to Buy According to Hedge Funds.
Alibaba Group Holding Limited (NYSE:BABA) demonstrated strong performance with accelerating growth momentum in its core businesses after a year of transformation, while largely completing divestments of offline assets. The company’s e-commerce segment showed robust growth with CMR increasing 9% YoY, while the cloud business maintained strong momentum with revenue growth accelerating to 13% and AI-related product revenue sustaining triple-digit growth for the sixth consecutive quarter. The international e-commerce business maintained strong growth with improving operating efficiency, and the company expects AIDC (integrated digital commerce) to achieve its first quarter of profitability in the next fiscal year.
Alibaba Group Holding Limited (NYSE:BABA) has outlined a clear strategic focus on three business categories: domestic and international e-commerce, AI plus cloud computing, and Internet platform businesses. The company plans significant investments in AI infrastructure over the next three years, with planned investment in cloud and AI infrastructure set to exceed what they have spent over the past decade. These investments will focus on three key areas: infrastructure for AI and cloud computing, AI foundation models, and AI native applications, as well as transforming existing businesses with AI technology. The company maintains a strong net cash position of around $51.9 billion, providing sufficient resources to support these strategic investments. BABA has significantly outperformed the broad market year-to-date, which can largely explain its position as one of the most popular stocks on Robinhood in 2025.
Overall,BABA ranks 5th on our list of most popular stocks on Robinhood in 2025. While we acknowledge the potential of BABA as an investment, our conviction lies in the belief that AI stocks hold greater promise for delivering higher returns and doing so within a shorter time frame. There is an AI stock that went up since the beginning of 2025, while popular AI stocks lost around 25%. If you are looking for an AI stock that is more promising than BABA but that trades at less than 5 times its earnings, check out our report about this cheapest AI stock.
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Disclosure: None. This article is originally published at Insider Monkey.