NIO heads into its May 21 Q1 2026 earnings report with options positioning showing the most bullish tilt in more than a year.
The options market is the clearest signal heading into the print. The put/call ratio has dropped to 0.686 — roughly two standard deviations below its 20-day average of 0.72, making it the most call-heavy reading of the past year. That is a decisive lean toward upside exposure, not protection. The stock itself has been volatile: down 7.3% over the past month to $6.10, yet recovering 4.3% across the past week as sentiment shifted. The last print delivered a sharp positive reaction — shares jumped around 10.7% in a single session and extended to roughly 20.6% over the following five days. That recent history may be feeding the current appetite for calls.
Short interest, however, tells a more cautious structural story. Shorts have pulled back over the past week, with shares short declining around 7.5% to approximately 134.5 million. That is a meaningful reduction but it still represents a significant absolute position in the stock. Borrow remains cheap at 0.67% annualised, and availability is moderate — around 77% of the lending pool is in use, down from a 52-week peak of 100%, meaning there is still room for new short positions to be established without a squeeze. The ORTEX short score of 61 ranks in the bottom decile of the universe, confirming that short interest pressure remains an embedded feature of the name, not a fading concern.
The bull and bear cases are sharply drawn. Bulls point to NIO's battery-swap technology and multi-model platform as structural differentiators within China's premium EV segment, which sold around 326,000 units in 2025. Bears counter that those volumes represent only about 2% of Chinese passenger NEV sales — a limited share in an intensifying competitive landscape where initial sales of new model launches have disappointed. On the analyst side, HSBC upgraded to Buy in March with a $6.80 target, while Barclays stays at Underweight with a $4.00 target. The realistic range of individual analyst targets ($4.00–$8.50) brackets the current price tightly, reflecting genuine disagreement rather than consensus drift. EPS surprise has a strong track record — ranking in the 97th percentile — though forward EPS momentum sits near the bottom of the universe, ranking in the 2nd percentile over 90 days.
The print will test whether Q1 delivery and revenue figures are sufficient to validate the call-heavy options positioning — and whether NIO can close the gap between its volume ambitions and a market share story that still has plenty of sceptics on the Street.
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