If you have never heard of this product, NIO Inc. (NYSE: NIO) a Shanghai-based car manufacturer specializing in the design and development of electric autonomous vehicles. The company that the & # 39; Tesla of China & # 39; was named four years ago and listed on the New York Stock Exchange last September and raised 1.8 billion dollars.
Currently it offers two main models, the ES6, an SUV with five passengers with a price tag of 358,000 yuan or $ 52,000, and the ES8, a luxury SUV with seven rows and seven rows, positioned as a domestic Chinese alternative to Tesla & # 39; s (NASDAQ: TSLA) Model X. It has a price of 448,000 yuan, or about $ 65,000 versus the sticker price of the Model X of $ 113,000.
NIO's 3rd model, the EP9, is an electrically powered, two-seat sports car, which the company claims to be one of the world's fastest electric cars. His 1,360 horsepower drives him to 7.1 km / h in 7.1 seconds. Only six have been sold so far for a hefty $ 1.2 million each.
In addition to the incredible benefit for the entire electric vehicle sector, including the company, there are three additional reasons that we think this stock is something that should be on the radar of every investor.
1. Accelerated sales in China
NIO delivered a total of 11,348 vehicles in 2018, with their respective sales targets being overfilled, including 3,318 units in December alone
NEV completion percentage 2018
NEV completion percentage 2018
The company pays much more attention to Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA) in China, because the US car manufacturer has fought under the tariffs for commercial transactions, which have pushed up the price of its Model X SUV and Model 3 Sedan
Tesla versus NIO
Tesla versus NIO
China is the world's largest and fast-growing new energy vehicle market (NEVs), a category consisting of electric battery carts and plug-in electric hybrids. The sale of NEVs in China increased by 61.7% year-on-year in 2018 to 1,256 million units, according to sales data released by the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers (CAAM).
NIO looks beyond China and has the ambition to expand over the next two to three years to Europe and the United States, according to Jack Cheng, one of the founders of NIO and now the CEO of XPT, the powertrain division of NIO. He says it is:
"The first vehicle that is already being brought to the European standard, so that we can make a step towards Europe, then we can move to the United States, because it is a more critical market."
2. Big-Time Investor Backing
The buzz about NIO rose after reports that the British investment management company and Tesla investor Baillie Gifford acquired a 11.4% stake in the Chinese company on 9 October. The company holds 85.3 million NIO shares, the company said in an application to the US Securities and Exchange Commission.
The news made a serious wave. Baillie Gifford is the largest external shareholder of Tesla, with a 9% stake. Tesla & # 39; s largest investor, founder and CEO Elon Musk, holds approximately 20% of the shares.
Investment advisory firm Vanguard and Morgan Stanley (NYSE 🙂 have also announced that they have bought 19 million and 12 million shares of NIO respectively in the most recent quarter. Other prominent investors include China's Tencent Holdings (OTC: TCEHY), technology company Baidu (NASDAQ: BIDU), private Singaporean holding company Temasek, Chinese technology company Lenovo (OTC: LNVGF) and Sequoia Capital.
In addition, the notorious short-selling author Andrew Left or Citron Research published a long paper about NIO and made it a long time that equities would rise to $ 12. They currently trade from $ 7.44 from the end of yesterday.
"Just as Tesla was not a simple story about an American electric car, NIO is so much more than just a story about a Chinese electric car." NIO's visionary management is revolutionizing the high-end automotive industry in China, "he wrote in a note on November 19. According to Citron, the Chinese EV automaker is" not just a car company, "but" a lifestyle and a brand that's ready. is to disrupt. "
3. Bullish Technical Picture
Since the shares began trading on September 12, the shares reached a highest value of $ 13.80 and a lowest price of $ 5.62. Yesterday's closing price represents a profit of about 19.4% of the IPO price of $ 6.00.
From a technical point of view, the stock broke above the main resistance at the $ 8.30 level on February 6, before retiring in a constructive way to a 50-day moving average of about $ 7. Stock has to maintain this level before the recent breakout price is tested again.
NIO card
NIO reports the next income on Wednesday 27 February for the bell. Revenue is expected to be $ 2.91 billion, driven by revenue of $ 1.47 billion in the previous quarter.
