Chinese holding company NIO, Inc. designs, manufactures, and sells electric cars, autonomous vehicles and artificial intelligence systems. NIO produces products as diverse as the EP9 supercar, a seven-seater SUV called the ES8, and home charging and public charging stations for electric vehicles.
NIO, Inc. trades on the NYSE under the symbol NIO. NIO has a market capitalization of over $60 billion, and its share price has ranged from $1.73 to $54.20 over the last 52 weeks. NIO is scheduled to release its third quarter earnings before markets open on November 17, 2020. Year to date, NIO’s share price has risen a remarkable 1,008.5% as of November 13, 2020, reaching a record high of $48.30 on November 12. Since reaching that record high, the share price has shrunk somewhat, losing 7.7% on Friday before regaining 1.44% by mid-day on November 16, 2020.
NIO is the largest of China’s electric vehicle developers listed on United States exchanges. The other two publicly listed electric vehicle developers in China — Li Auto and Xpeng — went public just this summer. The most recent report by Barron’s entitled “Li Auto Stock Is Upgraded, Xpeng Target Is Raised. It’s the Wild West on EV Ratings” describes the consistent recommendation upgrades and target price increases relating to EV companies in China. While one analyst — Fei Fang of Goldman Sachs — recently downgraded NIO to “hold” from “buy” based on its increasing share price, then to “Sell” in July as shares kept rising in price.
In trading on the eve of NIO’s Q3 earnings results announcements, the share price slipped somewhat before regaining lost ground and increasing by over two percent as of writing. When NIO last reported earnings in August 2020, it reported a loss of $1.08/share which fell below analysts’ expectations of a loss of $0.35/share. A consensus estimate for Q3 is a per share loss of $0.25, but results will be released shortly with the impact on NIO’s share price to be seen. Can share prices in China’s EV market stay this hot?