Renaissance Technologies disclosed on Wednesday that it increased its stake in Nio during the second quarter, solidifying its position among the largest institutional shareholders of the Chinese electric vehicle maker.
The New York-based quantitative hedge fund first opened a position in Nio in the second quarter of 2020 with a purchase of 9.3 million shares.
It expanded the holding to nearly 14 million shares in the third quarter before fully exiting in subsequent quarters — timing the exit as Nio shares hit their all-time high of $66.99.
Founded by the late Jim Simons, Renaissance re-entered the stock later in 2021 and exited again in the final quarter of 2023.
It returned to Nio a year ago with a 258,700-share purchase, then boosted its position to nearly 12.5 million shares in the third quarter of last year. Since then, it has held between 7 million and 9 million shares before the latest increase.
The filing also showed that JPMorgan rebuilt its position in Nio during the second quarter, acquiring more than 4.4 million shares between April and June. The stake reached a new record since late 2022.
BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager, also increased its holdings in the period.
As of Thursday, Fintel data shows 467 institutional shareholders holding roughly 229.5 million Nio shares.
Earlier this week, Citigroup reported it cut its Nio stake by 6.51% in the second quarter while maintaining call options and reducing put options.
Separately, Nio said Thursday it will hold a pre-launch event for the third generation of its debut production model, the ES8 SUV, on Aug. 21.
Nio’s shares rose 4.6% to $4.62 on Wednesday, after falling nearly 9% the previous day when registrations for its three brands — Nio, Onvo and Firefly — fell sequentially in China and Citi disclosed its reduced stake.
As of press time, the stock is trading 1.3% lower on Thursday’s pre-market session.
