Shares ofNIO,XPeng,andLi Autofell dramatically in Wednesday trading, adding to recent investor pain. Electric vehicle stocks have been roiled by issues ranging frominterest ratechanges tomicrochip shortages. Today’s is due to a new reason.
NIO (ticker: NIO) shares fell almost 7%. XPeng (XPEV) stock dropped 8%. Li Auto (LI) shares fared the worst Wednesday, dropping almost 13%.
EV investors can’t use rotation out of highly valued technology stocks as an excuse, however. Recently, old economy value-oriented stocks have been outperforming tech as the global economy awakens from its Covid-induced coma. TheNasdaq Composite Indexfell only 0.1%. TheRussell 1000 Growth Indexand theS&P 500both closed up about 0.2%.
So what’s hurting Chinese EV stocks? Li Auto seems responsible, catalyzing the drop byannouncingplans for a $750 convertible bond offering in what amounts to a capital raise.Convertible bonds, as their name suggests, convert into common stock under certain conditions, and investors don’t like to see their existing stakes diluted with new stock. It’s the reasonmost capital raisestend to drive stock prices down for a while.
A convertible bond can generate some stock selling pressure in yet another way. Convertible arbitrage traders will sell the stock of the issuer short and buy the convertible bond. That way they can lock in a relatively attractive bond yield and take the stock risk, embedded in a convertible, out of their return equation.
With Wednesday’s drop, NIO, XPeng, and Li stocks are down more than 20% on average this year. U.S. EV stocks aren’t doing so hot either.Lordstown Motors(RIDE) has tumbled 41% this year, whileWorkhorse Group(WKHS) has slumped 44%, andNikolahas dropped 19%. All three of those stock have had their own issues to deal with, such asnegative research reportsandcontract losses.
And evenTesla(TSLA), which is down just 4.9% in 2021, has fallen 24% since peaking in January.
EV investors havedealt with a lotalready in 2021. Higher interest rates, which make financing growth more expensive and reduce the value of future cash flows, hurt EV stocks. So has the chip shortage. NIO stock, for instance, dropped after it cut delivery guidance because of a lack of chips. Now the specter of more capital raises is shaking investor confidence a little more.
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