The chart of the day is Alibaba.
BABA opened at $107.60 this morning, one session after closing at $98.14. It’s trading around $108.55 as I write this — up 10.6% in a straight line. This is the biggest single-day move Alibaba has printed in months, and it came off a six-month low of $94.81 tagged just two weeks ago. If you had the Alpha Dashboard open at the bell, BABA was the first name to move onto the top-gainer panel and it never left.
Let’s walk the chart together.
From $177 to $95 to $108
BABA topped out on January 22 at $177.18. That was the “China AI trade is back” peak — DeepSeek headlines, Qwen model buzz, and a rush of Western funds finally buying the story. From there it was a slow, grinding drip lower. Through February. Through March. Through April. My notes from May had it “chopping in the $130s and looking heavy.” By late June it had lost another $30 handle and printed $94.81 — a level BABA hadn’t seen since last summer.
What Bounces Look Like
Bounces off six-month lows come in two flavors. The first is a slow, boring drift — three days of low volume, price grinds up two dollars a day, nobody notices. The second is what we got today: a gap open, a shove higher on real volume, and a close near the highs of the session. That second flavor is what dip buyers wait for. It’s a statement. Whether it holds is a completely different question.
The tell: volume. Today’s 17.5M shares is nearly double the average of the last two weeks. The two green bars on the far right of the chart are the biggest we’ve seen since May.
What the Dashboard Was Showing
Here’s the useful part. Before the open, BABA and the broader China internet complex (KWEB was up 3.35%) were quietly on the Alpha Dashboard sector rotation panel — not screaming, just holding green while semis rolled over. That’s the tell we usually miss. When a beat-up group holds up on a bad day for the leader (INTC -3.9%, SOXX heavy), it’s often the setup for a rotation trade.
When a beat-up name gaps and holds like this, the flow leaderboard usually lights up within the hour. Repeat call sweeps in the same-strike, same-expiry are the tell.
The Levels That Matter
Now we get to work. A move like today’s needs to prove itself. Here’s what I’m watching on the BABA chart from here:
- $105 — the “hold or fade” line. The gap-fill sits right around $102. Anything above $105 into Thursday’s close keeps the reversal thesis alive. A drop below $102 puts us right back at square one.
- $115 — the first real resistance. That’s where BABA broke down in early June. If today’s buyers are serious, that level gets tested this week or next.
- $125 — the “regime change” number. Reclaiming $125 would put BABA back inside its April/May range. That’s the level where trend followers get involved.
The Bigger Picture
Alibaba is a proxy for a broader question I’ve been chewing on all week: does the China internet trade have another leg? KWEB, PDD, JD — they’ve all been quietly firming while the U.S. semis trade got tired. Today’s BABA move is either the first crack of that rotation or a one-day pop into thin summer volume.
The dashboard will tell us. Same-strike call repeats in BABA over the next two sessions is the confirmation. Sweeps in PDD or JD alongside it is the “this is a theme, not a name” signal. No follow-through by Friday and it’s back to the drawing board.
Either way, we got a chart worth talking about. That’s why it’s the chart of the day.
P.S. — When a beat-up name gaps 10%+ off a six-month low, we don’t chase it. We track the flow. Get access here.
Trade Smart,
S.E.A.L. Alpha Team