Written by Cláudio Afonso | LinkedIn | X
BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager, reduced its holdings in Chinese electric vehicle makers Nio and XPeng in the fourth quarter of 2024 while increasing its stakes in U.S. EV companies Lucid Motors and Rivian, according to its latest quarterly portfolio update.
The asset manager disclosed it added nearly 3.79 million shares of Rivian and 5.4 million shares of Lucid during the quarter.
BlackRock cut its position in XPeng to 4.7% after selling about 10 million shares between October and December, reducing its stake by 12% to 72.77 million shares by year-end.
For Nio, BlackRock reported holding 2.08 million shares as of December 31, down from 3.02 million at the end of the third quarter.
BlackRock’s position in the Shanghai-based EV maker has declined sharply over the past year. After ending 2023 with 62.6 million shares, it added 10,000 shares in the first quarter of 2024 but sold nearly 2.2 million shares in the second quarter, bringing its position down to 60.5 million shares.
In the third quarter, BlackRock offloaded 92% of its stake, holding 5.1 million shares as of September 30. The latest filing shows the firm further cut its position in Nio during Q4, selling 3,024,566 shares to end 2024 with 2,082,526 shares.
JP Morgan & Chase Co
As reported on Wednesday, JP Morgan acquired 1,575,898 Nio shares in the fourth quarter, raising its total holdings by more than 65% to 3,986,722 shares.
JP Morgan Chase began investing in Nio in early 2019 and increased its holdings until the second half of 2020, when its stake surpassed 10 million shares. Since then, it has made multiple adjustments to its position.
Stock Performance
Nio, which began trading on the New York Stock Exchange in September 2018, saw its shares surge nearly 5,000% to around $67 between October 2019 and January 2021, amid a boom in the EV sector and a broader market rebound following the initial shock of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Other NEV makers also saw similar gains during this period: Tesla’s shares rose 1,665%, while Li Auto’s shares tripled in November 2020, four months after its IPO. XPeng, the Guangzhou-based EV maker which went public in September 2020, saw its shares climb from the low $20s to a record $74.99 within two months.
Institutional Ownership
Despite a 70% decline in stock price over the following 18 months, institutional holdings rose to nearly 600 million shares by early 2023. However, since then, institutional ownership has sharply decreased and hit a new 5 year low in December 2024.
As of the end of last year, institutional ownership stood at 229.7 million shares, according to Fintel data. This represents the lowest level since mid-2019, when the stock was trading at a similar price of around $4.
Over the last three years, the number of shares held by institutional investors has dropped by over 60%. As of Thursday, Nio has 544 institutional owners and shareholders holding 220,700,461 shares.
Tencent Holdings, previously one of Nio’s significant shareholders, has been steadily reducing its position. In May 2024, Tencent sold over 28.4 million shares, reducing its stake by 22.9%. This followed a similar move in 2023, when Tencent sold more than 40 million shares, cutting its stake by 24.4%. Tencent’s holdings now stand at 95.66 million shares.
Morgan Stanley has also made adjustments to its position. In the first quarter of 2024, the firm increased its holdings to a record 28.2 million shares. However, it nearly halved this position in the second quarter, reducing its stake to 15.76 million shares.
Last November, Morgan Stanley reported that it further reduced its stake in the third quarterby 12.8%, leaving it with 13.73 million shares, valued at $92 million at the end of the third quarter.
