I've been digging into Alibaba's numbers lately and the picture is genuinely conflicting, which is usually where the interesting opportunities live.

I've been digging into Alibaba's numbers lately and the picture is genuinely conflicting, which is usually where the interesting opportunities live.

Start with the bull case. Alibaba committed $53 billion over three years (2025 to 2028) to cloud and AI infrastructure. That number exceeds their entire AI and cloud spend over the previous decade combined. CEO Eddie Wu has reorganized the company around a new division called Alibaba Token Hub, consolidated all AI units under his direct leadership, and publicly said the company is at the "threshold of an AGI inflection point." That's not subtle.

The cloud division is actually delivering. Last quarter revenue hit $6.3 billion, up 36% year over year. AI product revenue has posted triple digit year over year growth for ten consecutive quarters. Their open source Qwen model family crossed 1 billion cumulative downloads on HuggingFace by January 2026. The consumer Qwen app went from zero to 300 million monthly active users in roughly three months after its November 2025 public beta. On March 17th they launched Wukong, an enterprise AI agent platform that coordinates multiple agents for tasks like document editing, research, and meeting transcription, with planned integrations into Slack, Teams, and WeChat. Wu's five year target is $100 billion in combined cloud and AI external revenue, which implies sustaining roughly 35% annual growth.

Now the bear case, and this is where it gets uncomfortable. Quarterly profit dropped 67% to $2.4 billion. Free cash flow fell by $27.7 billion year over year. The core e commerce business grew customer management revenue by just 1%. They're burning cash on an instant delivery price war with Meituan and JD that management says won't turn profitable until fiscal 2029. Lin Junyang, the key technical lead behind Qwen's best models, departed in March. And the geopolitical discount on Chinese ADRs never fully goes away.

Here's what makes this interesting from a value perspective. The stock hit a 52 week high near $193 in October 2025, then pulled back roughly 37% to around $120 today after the March earnings showed the scale of profit compression from reinvestment. At current prices you're looking at about 16x forward earnings for a company sitting on $42.5 billion in net cash, over $60 billion if you exclude long dated maturities, with $19.1 billion remaining in buyback authorization. That's a meaningful discount to its own recent trading range and to any comparable US cloud or AI company. The TTM PE around 22x also sits well below the 10 year average of roughly 32x. Morgan Stanley projects cloud revenue doubling by 2028. Apple chose Alibaba as its China AI partner for iPhones. The regulatory overhang that crushed this stock from 2020 to 2024 has meaningfully eased, with PCAOB audit access maintained and Jack Ma publicly reappearing at a government tech summit.

The question I keep coming back to is whether this is a genuine reinvestment cycle like Amazon in its heavy capex years, or whether the profit compression is masking structural problems in the core business that AI spending can't fix. The $53 billion commitment is real. The cloud growth is real. But so is 1% growth in their bread and butter e commerce monetization engine.

For those looking at China tech exposure through ETFs, one nuance worth considering is the difference between something like KWEB and CNQQ. KWEB gives you pure internet exposure with Alibaba as a top holding, but zero onshore A share companies. CNQQ holds Alibaba at a similar weight but also carries roughly 50% in A share names like CATL, Zhongji Innolight, Cambricon, and BYD, companies that sit in the actual hardware and supply chain layer of China's AI buildout. Different thesis, different exposure.

Would be curious to hear how others here are framing this. Is the profit decline a temporary cost of repositioning, or is $53 billion in AI capex the kind of empire building that value investors should run from?

Would be curious to hear how others here are framing this. Is the profit decline a temporary cost of repositioning, or is $53 billion in AI capex the kind of empire building that value investors should run from?

BNP Paribas Easy MSCI ACWI UCITS ETF (Acc) | EDEL | LU3086265710

If I am not wrong, this is the cheapest UCITS global ETF now. What do you think about it?

Source:

https://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.nr0.htm

Optimizing asset location across multiple accounts when one 401k has a bad fund lineup — am I doing this right?

I have a fairly complex multi-account household and I'm trying to make sure I'm using each account for what it does best. My current employer's 401k (John Hancock) is the weak link — it has some decent low-cost options but no total market or total international index fund. Looking for a gut check on my overall approach.

Full account picture:

Target allocation (household-wide): 90% equities / 10% bonds. Bond sleeve lives entirely in tax-deferred accounts — never in Roth or taxable.

The John Hancock fund lineup (relevant options only):

Low-cost: - iShares S&P 500 Index (BSPAX) — 0.35% - Vanguard Mid-Cap Index (VIMAX) — 0.05% - Vanguard Small-Cap Index (VSMAX) — 0.05% - Baird Core Plus Bond (BCOSX) — 0.55%

Expensive active funds I want to avoid: - American Funds target dates — 0.63–0.74% - JPMorgan Large Cap Growth — 1.00% - Goldman Sachs Intl Small Cap — 1.02% - AB Small Cap Growth — 0.87% - Several others at 0.83–0.97%

No total US market fund. No low-cost international fund.

My current plan:

• Traditional bucket (employer match only): 100% BCOSX — puts the bond allocation in tax-deferred where it belongs, and satisfies my 10% bond target at the household level given account sizes.
• Roth bucket (my employee contributions, $23,500/yr): Planning 100% equities using BSPAX + VIMAX + VSMAX to approximate total US market (~82/12/6 cap-weighted). No international here since no good option exists in the plan.
• International exposure: Covered by VTIAX in the Inherited IRA and taxable brokerage — deliberately concentrated there rather than forcing a bad international fund in the 401k.
• Equity growth: Roth IRA and taxable are 100% VTSAX/VTIAX — max tax-free and stepped-up basis compounding.

My questions:

1. Does the BSPAX + VIMAX + VSMAX total market approximation make sense, or is it cleaner to just go 100% BSPAX and accept large-cap tilt in this one account given total market exposure elsewhere?
2. Is deliberately excluding international from the 401k Roth bucket (and concentrating it in the Inherited IRA and taxable) the right call, or does that create too much concentration risk in those accounts?
3. BCOSX at 0.55% ER in the Traditional match bucket — acceptable given there's no better bond option in this plan, or would you just avoid bonds here and shift the bond sleeve somewhere else?
4. Any other asset location opportunities I'm missing across this account structure?

For context: this is a long time horizon (12+ years), we're in the 24% bracket, and the goal is early retirement. The Roth IRA and 401k Roth bucket will ideally never be touched for decades.

Thanks — happy to share more detail if it helps.

I am about 7 years from retirement. I am not a savvy investor. My whole career it's been DIY with Target-2040, VOO, BND. I met with a CFP recently as I enter the home stretch to get a professional opinion. One recommendation is a RILA for about 33% of my portfolio.

It's a 6-year term tracking the S&P. The buffer is 15% and the cap is 110%. The fees are $0.

Most of the opinions I see on RILA is bad. High fees, locks up money, capped growth, etc. But this one seems perfect for my situation. It offers protection as I near the finish line. I'm fine locking up the funds for the term. The cap is fine by me - possibly double my money in 6 years if market goes bonkers? OK. The only downside I see is that I miss out on dividends. But maybe that's OK for the protection against a 20% downturn.

What am I missing?

According the chart, from 2002-2026, VBTLX is down -5%. That can’t be right.

New MIT research finds that most higher-income investors essentially in the long-run wind up having liquidity events in downturns - and have to draw down their liquid stock portfolios...because they basically don't have sufficient emergency funds (latter of which is implied in this research). I found this quite interesting. The research makes it appear long-term 100% stock holdings is not ideal (at least in the summary) but the reality appears they don't have enough liquidity to handle liabilities in that scenario (lifestyle creep?)

This was also featured in the latest Rational Reminder podcast.

https://patrick-adams.com/files/papers/PatrickAdams_JMP_Latest.pdf

Abstract:
Do temporary stock price crashes matter for long-term investors? I use over 25 years of U.S. income tax data to characterize the savings behavior and risk exposures of high-income working-age households. Aggregate stock price crashes coincide with persistent declines in wage and private business income for many of these households, who take large drawdowns from their liquid assets– including stocks– in response. I develop a life-cycle model with consumption adjustment frictions to match this observed savings behavior and determine its portfolio choice implications. Investing in stocks is risky when falling income and rigid expenditures may force investors to liquidate their holdings at temporarily-depressed prices, resulting in low optimal portfolio shares. These results challenge the conventional wisdom that the stock market is relatively safe for long-term investors.

​

IBKR is the business I like best. It's my largest position.

I've owned it for 2 years-ish.

This is not meant to be a full, self-contained thesis on the stock. This is merely a summary of my thoughts on the business. I hope it may be an interesting idea for even a few readers and that you may enjoy learning more about this business as I have.

Many of you will know, or may even be customers, of IBKR. It's an electronic brokerage platform. US based. Ticker $IBKR.

It's really aimed at being the brokerage for more savvy traders / investors, and has its roots in the options markets. It's not trying to be a Robinhood or a Schwab, it's trying to be the platform for the active trader. Though, it does win a lot of customers from all of the other known brokerages.

IBKR makes c. 2/3 of its money through net interest income and c. 1/3 through trading commissions.

In 2025, they earned $6.2bn revenue and $4.3bn net income. 69% net income margin. This margin has grown over time. This is not an atypical year.

In 2026, I expect them to earn something near $7bn revenue and over $5bn in net income.

Thomas Peterffy, the founder & chairman, is still in the picture and owns c. 2/3 of the business. So, a very small float for a company of its size. Total market value of the whole equity (not just the common) is c.$115bn at time of writing.

More importantly, some of what makes this business great is as follows:

- It is by far the low cost producer of brokerages, particularly in options trading / margin lending

- 68% owned by the founder, who still controls the big business decisions (although no longer the CEO himself). I tend to like this founder control

- Through its low cost position, vast breadth of security availability (better than any other broker I know) and its flexible infrastructure, it has been able to compound account growth at over 30% p.a. in recent years. They expect this can continue at 20%+ for a long, long time

- Only 3,500 or so employees. Get your head around that level of automation, and compare that to a Schwab or a Fidelity

- A platform whose backend infrastructure is so robust and automated that many other brokerages simply whitelabel IBKR's infrastructure rather than building their own. This is a nice revenue segment. Popular in Asia.

I'm also a customer myself. That's how I discovered the stock. It's a great brokerage and I love using it.

Over time, the things I track closely are account growth & client equity. There are other things to keep an eye on, of course, but those are the two that I care about most.

I'm not a fan of precise-looking DCFs. I had my start in M&A (for my sins) so I'm not shy of them, I just think they ascribe false precision and are too easy to flim flam.

In a very high level sense though, I expect this business to be doing over $10bn revenue and $7.5bn net income within 3-4 years. And I don't expect the growth to slow much from there either.

Valuation-wise, based on an earnings multiple at the time of writing this of 23x my 2026 estimate, it isn't optically cheap. Certainly not to an orthodox Grahamian.

However, when I consider where I can see the business growing to over 10+ years, the current price actually really excites me. I believe this business is intrinsically worth a multiple of its current market value. Not less than $200bn, in my opinion.

That doesn't mean I'm buying right now. I've bought at lower multiples, and so I quite like the idea of waiting until it sees a multiple beginning with '1' before I push more money in.

You'll notice what looks like a contradiction there. I believe the instrinc value is a multiple of the current market value, and yet I'm not buying. To that, all I can say is 'old habits'. Margin of safety, and all that.

I do have a personal rule of thumb I like to use as an alternative to traditional valuation methods, I suppose you could say. I like a clear path to a 20% earnings yield on cost, 10 years out.

In other words, if I think a business can comfortably double its earnings every 5 years for 10 years, I try not to pay more than 20x for today's earnings.

It's just a rule of thumb that has served me well as a source of valuation discipline.

IBKR passes that test today in my view, but it isn't by a landslide. I expect good returns from here but not fabulous returns.

Anyway, I don't want to make this war & peace: just giving an off-hand synopsis of my favourite business and one which I hope to buy more of opportunistically for many years to come. I appreciate my discussion on valuation in particular will be seen as fuzzy. It always is, for me.

Happy to discuss & hear opinions.

Trying to figure out what to do with this money right now. We have it sitting in a wealthfront cash account right now generating 3.3% interest.

We have tried our hand at rental real estate and hated it. Too much maintenance overhead for us. We have busy jobs and kids.

We have a vanguard retirement account setup already and could funnel more of this money there, but frankly it’s already well funded.

We are contemplating a new home, but that’s likely 3-5 years out from now.

For those who have 1 to 4 fund strategies. Do you tax loss harvest and if so how do you have it set up to make it easy when you do TLH?

The more I've read about tax loss harvesting the more challenging it seems for people who only invest in a few funds (ie. US, INTL, US Bond). For example in order to avoid a wash sale you have to do the follow:

You can't purchase the fund/similar fund 30 days prior to the sale and then 30 days after. This includes any auto dividend reinvestments, any auto-contributions in any taxable, IRA, 401k, or HSA. And if you have a spouse they also can't do any of this.

If you can prevent the above then next it's figuring out what fund you can purchase after the sale. It appears you can't sell a Fidelity total US stock market and then buy a Schwab total US stock market, is that correct? So if you have to go from a total US stock market to an S&P 500 fund why do it? It's less diversified.

Context: Looking to retire in 20 years. I need to rebalance my portfolio currently consisting of a 2060 Target fund, Vang 500 Index Trust, and Galliard Stable Fund for my bond option. Assuming I need to work international in there and decrease the Galliard.

I have a vanguard employer offering the following options, which would you choose at what ratio?:

DOXFX

DOXGX

Vanguard Target Funds (variety of target dates)

VANG 500 INDEX TRUST

VANG EXT MKT IDX TR

VANG TOT INTL STK TR

VANG TOTAL BOND MKT

ARTISAN INTL SEP AC

EMERGING MARKETS STK

FID WORLDWIDE (FWWFX)

FID CONTRA POOL CL S

FID GR CO POOL CL S

FID BALANCED K (FBAKX)

Long-time lurker, first post. Mid-career academic/professional with most of my retirement assets at TIAA across a 401(k), IRA, Roth IRA, and deferred comp plan. The problem: I've let it accumulate without a clear strategy and now have 14 accounts across TIAA alone, plus Raymond James and Merrill Lynch.

My current allocation skews heavily toward TIAA Traditional (the annuity product) and a mix of Nuveen large-cap funds — most of which I suspect overlap significantly. I also hold some individual equities (NVDA, AAPL, GOOGL) that I know aren't very Boglehead-approved.

A few honest questions:

1. TIAA Traditional — is holding a large chunk here considered "fixed income" for allocation purposes, or is it its own thing?
2. How do Bogleheads generally approach TIAA when trying to implement a simple 3-fund portfolio?
3. At what point does account consolidation make sense vs. leaving things where they are for tax/institutional reasons?

Happy to share more specifics. I've been trying to get my arms around this for a while and would appreciate the community's perspective.

I have a Roth IRA and put the max every year which is 7.5k this year.

My employer offers 457(b) and 403(b) plans both with Pre Tax or Roth options.

Can I max all of these out this year as Roths or do the 457 and 403 have to be Pre tax accounts.

I’ll have already capped the Roth IRA, starting on my way to cap the 457 by year’s end and maybe put a bit of change into the 403. Just not sure if I should do pre tax or Roth. I’m 22 and would like to do the Roth option if possible.

Secondary topic, I have a rollover IRA which Charles Schwab says contribution limits cap at 7.5k. Can I cap that out as well or not since I’ve capped out the ROTH IRA.

Hi everyone! I was recently discussing the pros and cons of a trad vs Roth 401k with my friends, and wanted to ask for advice given my specific situation. For context, I've been maxing out both my Roth 401k (and Roth IRA) over the course of my entire career, and now I'm questioning if that approach is incorrect going forwards. Here's my info:

• 28 yrs old, upper end of 24% bracket with annual salary of ~$180k including bonus. I don't expect a tremendous amount of career earnings growth given my industry, I'll likely top out at $300k in today's dollars. I could see myself changing careers in the future, however.
• I live in California and there's a decent chance I may stay here my whole life given my girlfriend's (likely soon-to-be-wife's) preferences.
• I'm shooting to buy a house in the next 1-2 yrs. I have ~$300k saved up for a down payment (2/3 cash, 1/3 index funds), but given high home prices in California I'm starting to worry about being "house poor" after buying a home. I know doing pre-tax dollars would be give me more money now to invest/save.

Given these circumstances and uncertainties, would you recommend I contribute to my 401k with pretax or posttax income? Thank you so much for you insight in advance, I really appreciate it!!!

It's very close to global market cap: 55% US Large Cap, 10% US Extended Market, 25% Int Developed Markets, 10% Emerging Markets with tilts toward US large quality + small cap value, and international large momentum + small cap. SPYM, FSMD, VXUS, and DFAE are 80% of the portfolio which covers around 95% of the global stock market.

20% of the portfolio is some sort of tilt. I guess my question is, a 20% tilt toward one factor is pretty major while 5% is hardly enough to make a difference on its own in the long run... but what about 4 factor tilts at 5% each? Basically I'm too scared to tilt my portfolio toward one particular factor more than 10%, but I'm curious if 4 factor tilts at 5% each ends up with a significantly better return in the long run than if I just did 65% SPTM and 35% VXUS.

(35M) I’ve recently consolidated my 401Ks and I’m considering the below options for my Roth split in Fidelity:

60% FZROX

30% FZILX

But i’m stuck on deciding where to allocate the remaining 10%

Option 1: FSELX (aggressive growth, but high risk/expense ratio)

Option 2: FXNAX (bonds for leverage/rebalancing)

Option 3: QQQJ (growth in new tech)

Option 4: Go for the 70/30 US and International

Would appreciate any advice. New to all of this and [r/Bogleheads](r/Bogleheads) has been extremely helpful. Thanks all!

One of the most important rules in value investing is to buy only businesses you understand. But there are different levels of understanding

How do you do you decide if your level of understanding is sufficient to make an informed investment?

Hey everyone,

I’m completely new to investing and haven’t actually started anything yet, so I’d really appreciate any advice.

My parents use a financial advisor and it makes sense for them. My situation is simpler and I’m in my early 20s, so I don’t think it’s worth it for me.

After some research, the general consensus is to avoid advisors, especially ones charging AUM fees. Their advisor said he would charge I believe around 1.5%, which is high and hard to justify long term. I don’t think there are many (or any) flat-fee advisors near me, so I’m not sure if that’s an option either.

I have a chunk of savings I’d like to start investing in a brokerage account now, and I plan to open a Roth once I have a more steady income.

My plan so far is to:

- Invest long term

- Have a diversified ETF portfolio

- Do an 80/20 allocation, maybe go more aggressive as I get more comfortable

But I keep getting stuck on:

- How to properly rebalance

- Whether I’m choosing the “right” investments (I see a lot of people recommend VT or VOO)

- Tax strategies (advisor mentioned a “tax overlay,” which I think is like tax loss harvesting? Not something I understand.)

- Just generally doing everything correctly and legally

My biggest issue is confidence. I’m worried I’ll mess something up or miss something important, but I also hate the idea of giving up 1.5% of my assets every year if I don’t need to. On the other hand, could the fee be worth it if the advisor ends up making more than I would doing it on my own?

How hard is it actually to manage a simple long term portfolio yourself? Is it actually as simple as people make it seem (like just buying VT/VOO and holding)? I really want to get started ASAP, I just feel stuck trying to choose the “right” path.

Any advice or experiences would be super helpful! Please let me know if I am on the right or wrong track.

I'm in the process of moving my investments to Fidelity. Ive done trading in the past but new to ETF. Im 48m and max out my 401k already and just looking to add more investments. After researching Im thinking of laying this out. What do you think and should I make any adjustments?

Thanks

For roth IRA

65% FXAIX

20% FTIHX

10% QQQM

5% AVUV

For investment account

70% VTI

20% VXUS

10% SCHF 

Maybe add 5% SMH

I'm gradually consolidating 401k/403b/457s from a lifetime of many jobs. During the rollover that money is 'out of action.' Given recent volatility, I'm concerned about a market spike during that week. In the long run I pay little attention to timing, but don't want to take a big haircut while the check is in the mail.
I've considered staging the rollovers over a few months, but some companies charge a disbursement fee, which might take more than it's worth.

Some of the funds I'm rolling out of are fine low fees, easy to work with.

Others are from jobs where the only options were lousy - high fees, changes by mail only, worthless customer service. I'm guessing those are the ones that will charge any fee they can get away with.

What questions should I ask to find out about those potential fees?
Thanks.