I use technical analysis to make buy and sell decisions, but I often begin with ideas from the newspaper. The best newspapers – as a Canadian, I use the Globe and Mail, but subscriptions to papers like the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Guardian, and so on also offer stock analysis – can be a tremendous source of ideas. T

Last week I saw the following investment note in the Globe: “Three analysts upgraded their ratings for Alibaba Group Holdings Ltd. (BABA). Raymond James' Aaron Kessler moved the stock to "strong buy" from ‘outperform’ and raised his target to $124 (U.S.) from $59, compared to the average of $107.59. Macquarie's Wendy Huang raised it to ‘outperform’ from ‘neutral’ with a target of $110 (from $76). CICC’s Wu Yue bumped it to ‘buy’ from ‘hold’ with a $105 target (from $88).”

This intrigued me, so I did a technical analysis of the stock, which you can see up above. The pattern (see above) is obviously a bullish cup and handle breakout.

So I searched the database I get with my subscription to the Globe. Using the system’s methodology, analysts voted the stock 9 out of 10, making it a strong buy. Of the 37 analysts following the stock, 12 rated it a “strong buy,” 20 called it a “buy,” four said “hold” and one said “sell.” That sounded like good odds to me, so I picked some up. The Globe’ analysis is highly protected, so I turned it into a PDF and stored it online. If you want to see what Alibaba’s detailed stock analysis looks like, please click here.

Shares of Alibaba shot up to a 1 1/2-year high in active trading last week, after the China-based e-commerce giant reported strong quarterly results and an attractive valuation. I was fortunate enough to pick some up before the stock went completely nuts. This was my second foray into the company: I was also in on its North American initial public offering, about two years ago.

Activity was so strong last week that it seems unreasonable to expect it to continue, but the stock has broken through resistance, so it’s not likely to drop below US$85 soon. That’s got to be worth something. Also, compare Alibaba to the following chart of the S&P 500. You will notice that Alibaba has been much more stable than the average S&P share.

Of course, I never, ever, make buy or sell recommendations.