- NIO stock has stalled out near $9 right at the 21-day moving average.
- The September US CPI that came out before Thursday’s open showed headline inflation
- Nio stock is having difficulty recovering from a 17% plunge following its decision to raise $1.5 billion from convertible bonds.
- Equity futures including the NASDAQ 100 advanced 0.4% prior to the CPI release but lost half their gains after inflation arrived above consensus.
Nio (NIO) stock appears stuck around the $9 price level, close to the 21-day Simple Moving Average (SMA) on Thursday. Initially, NIO shares advanced close to 1% before the market opened, but the September Consumer Price Index (CPI) read on inflation was higher than expected.
NASDAQ 100, S&P 500 and Dow Jones futures all rallied in the premarket as many view the week’s advances as likely to continue. However, equity futures were cut in half after the CPI made its debut, and the NASDAQ 100 futures sank from 0.4% to 0.2%.
Nio stock news: Higher headline inflation a bad sign for stocks
Core inflation, the measure that excludes more volatile energy and food prices, was reported in line with consensus. Economists correctly estimated that the September core CPI was rise 0.3% on a monthly basis and 4.1% on an annual basis.
Headline inflation was slightly higher than consensus however. Headline CPI arrived at 0.4% on a monthly basis, above the 0.3% forecast. Similarly, annualized headline CPI was reported at 3.7% instead of the 3.6% forecast. This is likely due to the rise in oil prices during August and September.
This is mostly viewed as a bad sign for equities, because higher inflation readings could engender the Federal Reserve (Fed) to raise interest rates. That option has seemed less likely over the past week since a number of Fed officials have said fighting inflation did not require higher rates at this point but rather keeping rates flat at the 5.25% to 5.5% its been at since July.
On Tuesday, San Francisco Fed Bank President Mary Daly said that the higher Treasury yields that have emerged of late can be treated as a substitute for higher rates since it should lead to lower spending and investment. Dallas Fed Bank President Lorie Logan, Fed Vice Chair Philip Jefferson, and Atlanta Federal Reserve Bank President Raphael Bostic all have seemed to agree with Daly in their separate statements.
The CME Group’s FedWatch Tool has seen bets on a rate hike at the November meeting actually fall of late. On Thursday, the FedWath Tool shows a 91% chance that rates remain unchanged, whereas the odds were only 80% one week ago.
Separately, Nio’s stock price has been having trouble achieving lift-off this week after the Huawei-backed Aito company announced it had received 50K orders for its M7 electric SUV. Aito appears to be just the latest competition for the Chinese EV market, and shares of Li Auto (LI) and XPeng (XPEV) also backtracked on the announcement.
NIO FAQs
Nio is a designer and manufacturer of electric vehicles based in Shanghai, China. Formerly known as NextEV, the company changed its name to Nio in 2017. Nio trades under the NIO symbol on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) and under the 9866 tag on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. The company was incorporated in 2014 but went public on the NYSE in September 2020 with a $1.8 billion initial public offering. William (Bin) Li is the CEO of Nio, which he co-founded with President Lihong Qin, another Chinese business executive.
The main difference with other major EV brands like Tesla is that Nio offers battery swapping technology in addition to normal charging options. These swap stations allow drivers to switch out their batteries for fully-charged, identical batteries in less than five minutes, which allows owners to drive long distances without needing to stop for an hour to recharge like most other EVs. At the end of 2022, Nio had 1,305 battery swap locations and built its first swap station in Norway in May 2022. The goal for the customer is to reduce range anxiety.
Nio began its reign with the EP9 sport car back in 2016, and the vehicle is still being produced on a small scale. Since then, Nio has branched off into more mainstream fare. The ES8 was introduced in 2018. It is a full-size SUV with a range of 311 miles. The ES6 SUV dropped the following year and has a range of 379 miles. The smaller EC6 SUV arrived in 2020, and the ET5 and ET7 sedans were released in 2021 – the latter two with versions capable of achieving 621 miles of range. The ES7 and EC7 arrived in 2022 and 2023, respectively.
Yes. While the vast majority of Chinese automakers focus wholly on the Chinese market, Nio began its foray into Europe in late 2021. After beginning in Norway, Nio began entering the German, Danish, Dutch and Swedish markets in 2022 with plans to expand throughout the rest of the decade. Although they are not yet sold in the US, Nio vehicles are being tested in California under that state’s autonomous driving program.
Nio stock forecast
The 21-day Simple Moving Average (SMA) sits at $8.97 at the time of writing. This is exactly where NIO’s stock price closed on Wednesday. Ever since management raised $1.5 billion via convertible bonds on September 18, NIO has experienced resistance near the $9 level.
Typically, $9.50 has been a more formidable point of resistance for NIO shares in the past. The expected dilution from the convertible bond sales appears to have lowered this threshold however.
At this point Nio stock will require a catalyst to boost the share price back into the $10.15 to $11.30 high-volume zone. Support sits near $8.
NIO daily chart