New York, January 31, 2026, 07:29 EST — Market closed.
- NIO ended Friday lower, tracking declines in U.S.-listed Chinese EV peers while Tesla rose.
- China’s official factory survey slipped back below the 50 line that separates growth from contraction.
- Focus now shifts to early-February delivery updates and Monday’s next China PMI read.
NIO Inc’s U.S.-listed shares closed Friday down about 1.3% at $4.70, and U.S. markets are shut this weekend. Li Auto and XPeng fell more than 3%, while Tesla rose about 3%.
With the next session not until Monday, traders are left with the usual short list: demand signals out of China, the next delivery prints, and the direction of U.S. rates. NIO sits in that awkward middle — consumer-sensitive, China-facing, and still treated like a sentiment trade.
A new read on China didn’t help. The official purchasing managers’ index (PMI) — a monthly survey of factories — slid to 49.3 in January from 50.1, falling below 50, the line between growth and contraction; services and construction also weakened. “Beijing will have to do much more in coming months to deliver an annual GDP growth rate above 4.5% in 2026,” Ting Lu, chief China economist at Nomura, wrote in a note, with a private-sector PMI reading due on Feb. 2. Reuters
On the U.S. side, Wall Street’s main indexes closed lower on Friday after Donald Trump named Kevin Warsh as his pick to succeed Jerome Powell at the Federal Reserve, and investors digested a high inflation reading. “Markets are calibrating to Trump’s pick of Kevin Warsh … and the outlook for monetary policy,” said Michael Hans, chief investment officer at Citizens Wealth. Reuters
NIO is still well off last year’s highs. MarketWatch data put the stock about 41% below its 52-week peak, a reminder of how quickly rallies in the space fade when macro turns.
The company’s last major operating update was strong. NIO said it delivered a record 48,135 vehicles in December, up 54.6% year on year, and posted 2025 deliveries of 326,028 vehicles, up 46.9%. It also broke out deliveries across its NIO, ONVO and firefly brands.
Earlier this month, NIO said its 1,000,000th vehicle rolled off the production line, and Chief Executive William Li pitched an aggressive growth target. “One million vehicles is a new starting point,” Li said, adding the company aims to maintain annual volume growth of 40% to 50%. NIO
Next comes the harder part: proving that December’s delivery run was not just a year-end spike. Investors will watch for January delivery numbers in the coming days, and for whether China’s next PMI print steadies after January’s dip.
But the risk is plain. Weak domestic demand in China and relentless competition can turn volume into a margin problem, and U.S.-listed China names can still get knocked around by policy headlines and rate bets.
U.S. trading resumes on Monday, Feb. 2, with the private PMI release and any early-month delivery headlines likely to set the tone for NIO stock going into the new week.
