Vehicle deliveries slipped from the previous quarter amid Covid-19 lockdowns
Nio Inc (NYSE:NIO) is up 1.8% to trade at $17.42 this morning, despite the electric vehicle (EV) concern announcing second-quarter losses of 20 cents per share on $1.54 billion in revenue, the former wider than last year's results and the latter exceeding analyst expectations. What's more, the company said it delivered 25,059 vehicles, beating its own guidance but down 2.8% from the previous quarter, with deliveries taking a hit in April and May amid Covid-19 lockdowns in China.
Analysts are fiercely optimistic towards NIO, with eight of the nine in question carrying a "strong buy" rating, while only one said "hold." Echoing this, the 12-month consensus target price of $35.15 is a whopping 93.5% premium to the security's current levels.
That's a lot of optimism for a stock down 42.2% year-to-date. Digging deeper, the 160-day moving average has been pressuring shares lower since December. The $22 level rejected the equity's latest rally, after emerging as an area of resistance in July.
The options pits are bursting with activity this morning, with 49,000 calls and 24,000 puts across the tape so far, volume that's triple the amount normally seen at this point. Most popular is the 9/9 18-strike call, followed by the 17-strike put in the same weekly series, with new positions being bought to open at the latter.
Short-term options traders have been more bullish than usual. Nio stock's Schaeffer's put/call volume ratio (SOIR) sits at 0.59 and ranks in the 10th percentile of the last 12 months, meaning these traders have rarely been more call-biased.