Why Alibaba might miss expectations on its earnings report

Qudian, a China P2P lending company, today withdrew its full-year guidance because of a worsening regulatory environment in China. Qudian is still in good enough financial shape to buy back $500 million worth of shares, but nevertheless the company says it has seen default rates rise and volume fall sharply as a result of regulatory changes. With Alibaba having recently acquired a $9 billion+ stake in Chinese P2P lending company Ant Financial, the Qudian news is bad for Alibaba (and also, by the way, for Yirendai). Potentially we could see a miss of expectations on BABA's upcoming earnings report. I wouldn't call this a short play, however, because fintech is just one segment of BABA's business, and overall this is a strong company with strong upward momentum.