Alibaba Group (BABA) is scheduled to report results of its fiscal second quarter of FY23 before the U.S. market opens on Thursday, November 17, and will hold a conference call to discuss the results at 7:30 a.m. U.S. Eastern Time the same day. What to watch for:

SINGLES' DAY: On October 24, Alibaba announced the kick off of the 14th edition of its 11.11 Global Shopping Festival, which it said would be featuring "more than 290,000 brands." The company stated: "This year, Alibaba will equip merchants with tools and solutions to grow their brand loyalty membership programs and unveil new products, among other initiatives. To date, more than 40 brands on Tmall have loyalty membership programs that surpassed 10M members and 600 brands have loyalty membership programs with over 1M members. 11.11 presale on Tmall will kick off at 8 pm Beijing time on October 24. Two check-out windows will follow - the first window will begin at 8 pm on October 31 and end on November 3, while the second window will last from 8pm November 10 to November 11."

Last week, Alibaba announced it concluded its 11.11 Global Shopping Festival, also known as Double 11 or Singles' Day, after generating gross merchandise value, or GMV, for brands "in line with last year's promotion" despite what it highlighted as "economic and COVID-related headwinds." Last year, Alibaba said it generated GMV of RMB540.3B or $84.54B at the time. "The festival climaxed on Friday with 17 million products on offer to over 1 billion consumers in China. 11.11 pre-sales kicked off on Oct. 24 at 8:00 pm China Standard Time and sales ran from 8:00 pm on Oct. 31 to Nov.10 at 11:59 pm... Even in tough times, a presence in the world's second-largest retail market is a must and 290,000 brands took part in 11.11 over Alibaba's platforms, on par with last year," the company stated in a post to its blog.

At the end of October, Morgan Stanley analyst Gary Yu lowered the firm's price target on Alibaba to $90 from $110 and kept an Overweight rating on the shares. Although September online retail sales of goods in China came in better than market expectations, he expects the market to "reach a new valuation consensus level" as the industry is maturing and growth is slowing, Yu told investors. In the near-term, Double11 performance and the Q4 outlook are "the keys to watch," while potential change in COVID policy in China is the key to watch in the medium-term, Yu said. Yu also named Alibaba as a "Catalyst Driven Idea" ahead of the company's fiscal Q2 report, citing his view that its report of CMR growth will be the "next share price catalyst. He expects CMR to decline 4% year-over-year, but if Alibaba can deliver positive CMR growth, the "market might become more confident in its growth trajectory" for the second half of FY23 and FY24, said Yu.

U.S. AUDIT: In late July, the Securities and Exchange Commission added Alibaba, Mogo (MOGO), Cheetah Mobile (CMCM), and Boqii (BQ) to the provisional list of issuers identified under the HFCAA, or Holding Foreign Companies Accountable Act list. Under the HFCAA, the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board has the responsibility for determining that it is unable to inspect or investigate completely a registered public accounting firm or a branch or office of such a firm because of a position taken by an authority in a foreign jurisdiction.

Alibaba has claimed it would "strive" to keep its stock on the New York Stock Exchange despite the potential for the SEC to delist the company along with 200 others in 2024, The Financial Times has reported.

In early August, the Hong Kong Stock Exchange acknowledged Alibaba's application to convert locally traded shares to primary listing from the current secondary status, according to a filing. It is expected to take effect by the end of 2022, the document said. "We expect that the Primary Conversion will allow us to broaden our investor base and facilitate incremental liquidity, and in particular expand access to China- and other Asia-based investors," Alibaba said in a filing.

On November 16, Reuters' Xie Yu, Chris Prentice, and Julie Zhu reported that U.S. regulators gained "good access" in their review of auditing work done on New York-listed Chinese firms during a seven-week inspection. According to four sources with knowledge of the matter, the broader review of work done by Hong Kong and China-based auditors was ongoing and no decision had been taken on whether the dispute could be considered over. Alibaba and Yum China (YUMC) were among companies whose audit documents were slated for review during the inspection, Reuters noted.

SOFTBANK SALES: In late August, SoftBank (SFTBY) sold a large part of its stake in Alibaba to "instantly show" investors its finances were solid after a $23B quarterly loss, CFO Yoshimitsu Goto told The Financial Times in an interview. Kana Inagaki and Leo Lewis reported that while Goto dismissed market concerns that SoftBank's continued heavy losses could strain its relationship with lenders, the executive admitted that the Alibaba share sale was intended to reassure investors.

Last week, Financial News' Megumi Fujikawa reported that SoftBank had a profit of more than $21B in the three months to September, after gains from a sale of some of its stake in Alibaba offset losses at its Vision Fund investments. SoftBank, which posted a net profit of 3.034T for the quarter ended September 30, had Y5.372T of gains as a result of the sale of 242 million American depositary receipts of Alibaba. The company previously said that its stake in Alibaba would fall to 14.6% by the end of September.

CONSENSUS: In terms of overall results for the quarter ended September 30, analysts are calling for Alibaba to report total revenue of $29.45B. The consensus Q2 earnings forecast stands at $1.64 per share. For the December-end quarter, analysts' consensus currently calls for revenue of $36.41B and for Alibaba to post a profit of $2.44 per share, according to data from Refinitiv.

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