Welcome to Insider Trades Daily, glad you're here! Every day, more than 500,000 investors use this newsletter to track insider buying and selling across major public companies. It’s a simple way to see what the people closest to the business are doing with their own money. Before we start sending your daily updates, there’s just one quick thing left to do. Please confirm your subscription using the link below. Click Here to Confirm Your Subscription to Insider Trades Daily It takes a few seconds and helps make sure your newsletter shows up where it belongs, your inbox, not a spam folder. Once you’re confirmed, we’ll take it from there and deliver clear, no-nonsense insider trading insights straight to you. Start Receiving Insider Information The InsiderTrades.com Team P.S. If there's anything we can do to improve your experience, please let us know by replying to this email.
This Week's Exclusive Article
Amazon vs. Alibaba: One Is Clearly The Better Value Play right NowWritten by Sam Quirke. Date Posted: 5/14/2026. 
Key Points
- Amazon has been setting fresh all-time highs after another strong earnings report, while Alibaba remains stuck near 2017 levels.
- On paper, Alibaba looks cheaper, but Amazon’s superior execution and AI positioning arguably make it the better value play today.
- Both companies still have major opportunities ahead, but right now only one of them looks fully in control of its narrative.
- Special Report: The Biggest IPO Ever: Claim Your Stake Today
For all their similarities, the near-term prospects of Amazon.com Inc (NASDAQ: AMZN) and Alibaba Group Holding Ltd (NYSE: BABA) have rarely looked more divergent than they do right now. Amazon is up around 17% year to date and was setting fresh all-time highs just last week following another impressive earnings report. Alibaba, meanwhile, is down roughly 8% over the same period, continues to trade near 2017 levels, and reported a revenue miss in its earnings this week. At first glance, that might make Alibaba look like the obvious value play. After all, the company trades at a lower price-to-earnings (P/E) multiple than Amazon and still has meaningful upside if China’s economy stabilizes and its AI ambitions gain traction. However, once you look more closely at growth, execution, and momentum, the picture starts to look very different.
Porter Stansberry, founder of one of the largest financial research firms in the world, says he's breaking the biggest story of his 26-year career - an economic shift not seen since 1776.
From the government taking stakes in Intel, Lithium Americas, and MP Materials, to sweeping political changes reshaping the economy, Stansberry argues a rare 'New 1776 Moment' is already underway. One Nobel Prize winner calls it a dividing line for all of society.
His presentation covers the stocks to buy, the stocks to sell, and three money moves to position yourself on the right side of this shift. Watch Porter Stansberry's full briefing and learn how to prepare now
In fact, there’s a strong argument that Amazon, despite appearing more expensive on the surface, may actually be the cheaper stock right now. Let’s jump in and take a closer look below. Amazon Is Executing Much Better Right NowThe biggest difference between these two companies right now is execution. Amazon’s most recent earnings report reinforced just how strong the company’s current position really is. Revenue and earnings comfortably beat expectations, guidance remained strong, and investor hopes for AWS continue to build as artificial intelligence (AI) spending explodes across the broader market. That AWS angle is incredibly important. Amazon stopped being valued simply as an e-commerce company many years ago. The shift toward a computing powerhouse is still underway, though, and there is still plenty of upside. Investors are increasingly viewing Amazon as one of the key infrastructure providers powering the AI boom, and that shift is gathering pace month by month. The company’s massive capital expenditure plans, which spooked investors earlier this year, are now being praised as strategic rather than dismissed as reckless. Investors can clearly see the payoff emerging through AWS’s growth trajectory, rising AI demand, and an enormous contracted backlog that bodes well for the coming years. That helps explain why the stock has gone from strength to strength over the past month and was setting fresh all-time highs just last week. In short, Amazon looks like a company firing on all cylinders. Alibaba Still Looks Like a Sleeping GiantThat doesn’t mean there is no reason to be excited about Alibaba right now—to be clear, the so-called Chinese Amazon still has plenty going for it. The company remains one of the most important technology and e-commerce businesses in China. While the stock has been depressed for several years, there are legitimate reasons many investors continue to believe it could eventually stage a major comeback. In addition, many analysts remain bullish on the company’s long-term positioning in key areas. Take this week’s note from Citi, for example, which highlighted growing optimism around Alibaba’s AI cloud opportunity and broader ecosystem strength. There is also an increasingly popular view that Alibaba’s AI investments remain significantly underappreciated by the market. The problem is that the actual business momentum still does not fully support that optimism. Alibaba’s latest quarterly results, released May 13, missed revenue expectations, reinforcing concerns that the company is still struggling to regain the kind of growth profile investors once expected. Weakening Comeback PotentialThat hurts the comeback narrative because Alibaba has spent the past several years trying to convince investors that a stronger growth phase is just around the corner. Unlike Amazon, which is increasingly being rewarded for execution and strategic clarity, Alibaba still looks more like a potential turnaround story that needs to rebuild investor trust first and foremost. The broader China overhang also remains difficult to ignore, with geopolitical concerns and slower domestic growth continuing to weigh on sentiment toward Chinese equities. That doesn’t mean Alibaba can’t eventually recover strongly; it absolutely can. But it does mean investors are being asked to buy into a future recovery that has not yet begun to materialize. Amazon May Actually Be the Cheaper StockFrom a valuation perspective, the comparison becomes particularly interesting. Amazon currently trades with a price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio of 32, noticeably higher than Alibaba’s 27. At first glance, that gap might appear meaningful enough to make Alibaba look like a real value opportunity, especially considering Amazon’s recent rally. Looks can be deceiving, however, and reality is arguably the opposite. Given that those P/E ratios are not dramatically different, investors should logically want to own the company that is executing better, growing faster, and operating from a position of greater strategic strength. There’s no question that, right now, that company is Amazon. It has stronger momentum and significantly better investor sentiment. Alibaba, on the other hand, still has to prove it can fully reignite its growth while simultaneously overcoming lingering skepticism around China and broader execution concerns. Sure, Amazon might look more expensive on a valuation basis alone. Still, in reality, investors are being asked to pay only a modest premium for a company that is operating at a demonstrably higher level. Until Alibaba starts showing the kind of consistent execution Amazon delivers quarter after quarter, the supposedly more “expensive” stock should continue to look like the much safer bet. |
