Baidu stock surges despite 62% profit drop

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Baidu stock surges despite 62% profit drop [asia.nikkei.com]

Once grouped together with Alibaba Group Holding and Tencent Holdings as one of the market-leading BAT companies, the Beijing-based firm has lost its shine with investors who have pummeled the company in 2019 as Chinese internet users continue to migrate from desktop computers to smartphones.

Often referred to as China's Google, Baidu has also lost ground to ByteDance, which operates the hugely popular short-video app TikTok and is luring away advertisers. ByteDance has also posted a direct challenge to Baidu's core business with the launch of its own search engine earlier this month.

So earlier this year we see Baidu post its first losses since its IPO [webmasterworld.com]. And then we see competitors like ByteDance open their own search services [webmasterworld.com]. Not a great year for Baidu, but it's not affecting its stock price?

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Clearly, investors see something there in Baidu, even if the markets are generally down. It must be a safe, long term bet.