Here’s Why Baron Funds Remains Hopeful in Alibaba (BABA)

Baron Funds, an asset management firm, published its “Baron Opportunity Fund” third quarter 2021 investor letter – a copy of which can be downloaded here. A decline of 2.03% was delivered by the fund’s institutional shares for the third quarter of 2021. For the period, the Fund trailed the Russell 3000 Growth Index, which rose 0.69%, and the S&P 500 Index, which increased 0.58%. You can take a look at the fund’s top 5 holdings to have an idea about their best picks for 2021.

Baron Opportunity Fund, in its Q3 2021 investor letter, mentioned Alibaba Group Holding Limited (NYSE: BABA) and discussed its stance on the firm. Alibaba Group Holding Limited is a Hangzhou, China-based e-commerce company with a $339.0 billion market capitalization. BABA delivered a -46.26% return since the beginning of the year, while its 12-month returns are down by -52.59%. The stock closed at $125.08 per share on December 08, 2021.

Here is what Baron Opportunity Fund has to say about Alibaba Group Holding Limited  in its Q3 2021 investor letter:

“Alibaba Group Holding Limited is the largest retailer and e-commerce company in China. Alibaba operates shopping platforms Taobao and T-Mall and owns 33% of Ant Group, which operates Alipay, China’s largest thirdparty online payment provider. Shares of Alibaba were down given crackdowns by Chinese regulators on various aspects of digital technology and consumer data, as President Xi and the Chinese Communist Party seek to seize greater control of social discourse and consumer data and curb monopolistic behavior. We decreased our Alibaba weighting in light of this uncertainty. Despite the uncertain environment, we do retain conviction that Alibaba will benefit from rapid growth in cloud services, logistics, and digital retail.”

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Based on our calculations, Alibaba Group Holding Limited (NYSE: BABA) ranks 13th in our list of the 30 Most Popular Stocks Among Hedge Funds. BABA was in 115 hedge fund portfolios at the end of the third quarter of 2021, compared to 146 funds in the previous quarter. Alibaba Group Holding Limited (NYSE: BABA) delivered a -26.73% return in the past 3 months.

Disclosure: None. This article is originally published at Insider Monkey.