Written by Cláudio Afonso | LinkedIn | X
Swiss bank UBS filed on Friday its quarterly portfolio update revealing it bought 40,052,869 shares in the EV maker Nio during the final quarter of 2024.
As of September 30, the bank held 4,107,936 shares before increasing its stake in the Chinese automaker by 975% in the fourth quarter. Since first investing in Nio shortly after its late 2018 IPO, UBS had never held more than 5.7 million shares until this latest purchase.
Additionally, the bank raised its call options by 2.06% to over 10.36 million contracts and increased its put options to 1.2 million contracts.
Morgan Stanley
Also on Friday, Morgan Stanley reported a 77.7% increase in its Nio position. It closed 2024 holding over 13.7 million shares which are currently valued at over $108 million.
In the first quarter of 2024, the firm increased its holdings to a record 28.2 million shares. In the following two quarters, it sold 12.5 million and 2 million shares, respectively.
BlackRock
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.
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. 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.
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.
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.
Nio’s institutional ownership has sharply decreased over the last three years 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 — the lowest level since mid-2019, when the stock was trading at a similar price of around $4.
As of Monday, Nio has 542 institutional owners and shareholders holding 227,579,221 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.
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.
On Friday, the stock rose 4.2% to close at $4.44, wiping out its year-to-date losses. Over the past 12 months, Nio shares have declined by approximately 28%.
