Courtside Financial Podcast

Four stories today — all connected to your portfolio. NIO's US-listed shares jumped nearly 4% in overnight trading after the company rolled out a major upgrade to its NIO World Model driver-assist platform — reaching over 700,000 vehicles, including cars sold up to four years ago. The update runs across both Nvidia Orin-X chips and NIO's own in-house Shenji chips simultaneously. NIO claims...

Six stories today — NIO leads and the China EV global expansion story is the one your portfolio needs to hear. NIO Champion Edition deliveries start Saturday June 20th — ET5, ET5 Touring, and EC6 all launching simultaneously. Starting at 313,000 yuan, better equipped and cheaper than last year's versions. The 5566 lineup has been struggling — down 56.3% year over year in May — and the Champion...

Five stories today — one of the most stacked news days of the year. SpaceX confirmed Tuesday it is acquiring Cursor — the AI coding tool developed by Anysphere — for $60 billion in an all-stock deal closing Q3 2026. Cursor generates $2.6 billion in annualized B2B revenue and is used by Fortune 500 developers globally. SpaceX's stock gained 16% on Tuesday, surpassing Amazon in market cap. Elon...

Four stories today — all connected to your NIO position and the broader Chinese EV investment thesis. William Li spoke at the China Auto Chongqing Summit on June 13th and said something most CEOs would never say publicly. China's domestic auto retail sales declined 19.5% year over year in the first five months of 2026. Early June accelerated to down 22%. The full year could fall 15-20%. He cal...

Four stories today — starting with the controversy dominating Chinese automotive social media right now. Li Auto posted a chassis comparison video on their official platform comparing the Li L9 Livis to the NIO ES9. The video was designed to make the ES9 look inferior. NIO's VP of Branding Ma Lin went public on Weibo and challenged the video's authenticity — stating that what it showed was...

NIO is playing a different game — and Motley Fool just called it out. While competitors chase export volume and watch margins collapse, NIO focuses on winning the domestic market with brand, tech, and community. William Li’s warning that China’s automotive golden era is over actually strengthens NIO’s positioning in a mature, saturated market. Plus: Uber burned through its full 2026 AI budget by A...

NIO is executing. The ES9 flagship is already on pace for 10,000 deliveries this month with strong waitlists on higher trims. Fresh today: partnership with GigaDevice on next-gen automotive chips and another smart financing move through Mirattery at ultra-low rates. We also check XPENG — strong demand on the GX SUV but a notable loss in their robotics team. Plus the hot US jobs report, Supabase hi...

Four stories today — starting with the luxury car conversation that connects directly to your NIO thesis. Rolls-Royce unveiled the new Spectre electric car and the Chinese internet destroyed it immediately — too conservative, no technology story, just an expensive car with a plug. A Chinese financial analysis summed it up: domestic luxury brands still have a lot to learn about what luxury means in...

Four stories today — all connected to the biggest month in NIO's history. NIO has burned approximately 100 billion yuan — $14.6 billion — over 8 years since William Li founded the company in 2014. June is the verdict month. NIO delivered 67,061 vehicles in April and May combined. To hit Q2 guidance of 110,000-115,000 vehicles it needs 42,939 to 47,939 in June alone. The ES9 is in its first ful...

Quick correction upfront — yesterday's story about William Li preparing an 8th IPO came from a Chinese article headline I could not fully verify. I'm pulling it back until confirmed. Credibility first always. The ES9 launched May 27th and already has a 17-week delivery queue. NIO stock surged 6.79% on June 1st and is trading at $6.18. The demand is real. But a serious question is being ask...

Four stories today — starting with the most important week in NIO's 2026 delivery story so far. NIO delivered 37,705 vehicles in May 2026 — up 62.3% year over year and up 28.4% from April's 29,356. Three brands all firing: 20,013 NIO brand, 12,029 Onvo, 5,663 Firefly. Year-to-date deliveries hit 150,526 — up 68.7% year over year. Cumulative deliveries reached 1,148,118. The ES8 has been th...

Four stories to close out May — starting with the most underrated bull case in the NIO thesis right now. NIO's battery swap network delivered 16% of all EV charging energy in China over a five-day period. Not 16% of NIO vehicle energy. 16% of ALL electric vehicle charging energy across the entire Chinese market. From one company's infrastructure. In five days. The market is pricing NIO as...

Four stories today — all connected to the future of the Chinese EV market and your portfolio. BYD unveiled the Xuanji A3 — China's first mass-produced automotive-grade 4nm smart driving chip. 2,100 TOPS of computing power in a three-chip configuration. Built for L3 and L4 autonomous driving. Already in mass production. But the real story is the 24-year infrastructure behind it. BYD set up its...

Dell Technologies just had its best single session in company history — up 33% after beating earnings and raising full-year guidance. AI server demand is flooding Dell's infrastructure division. Snowflake surged 36.5%. Best Buy up 15.8%. And today I want to have the honest conversation this channel has needed to have. I am a news guy first. I found the NIO story because it was one of the most...

Welcome back. A lot happened. Let's get into it. NIO ES9 deliveries kicked off yesterday — one day early. NIO hired NBA legend Yao Ming as Chief Experience Officer. The stock surged 9.3% in the US and 10.45% in Hong Kong. The higher-priced Executive Signature Edition and Horizon Special Edition trims are selling far above management expectations — a margin story that flows directly into Q2 rev...

Four stories today — all connected to what matters for your portfolio right now. Tomorrow the Onvo L80 officially launches. NIO's direct answer to Tesla's Model Y — priced below it, with battery swap included, and Morgan Stanley projecting Onvo reaches 30% of NIO group deliveries in Q2 up from 16% in Q1. William Li confirmed deposit flow was already exceeding internal forecasts before the...

Six stories today — all connected to your portfolio. The NIO ES8 topped China's large SUV retail rankings for the fifth consecutive month — including combustion vehicles. The most premium mainstream NIO product is the best-selling large SUV in China. That margin mix is what William Li was signaling when he told his team revenue growth would outpace delivery growth in Q1. The Onvo L80 launches...

Four stories today — all connected to your NIO position. NIO reports Q1 2026 earnings on May 21st before US markets open. Three things to watch on the call: whether revenue growth outpaced delivery growth as management guided, whether gross margin held above 17.5% from Q4 2025, and what William Li says about ES9 and L80 demand momentum. April delivery breakdown: the ES8 delivered 13,020 units — 44...

Five stories today — NIO leads everything. ES9 test drives open May 11th — this Sunday. NIO has initiated a 10,000 kilometer (6,200 mile) shortest-time driving challenge alongside the opens. Onvo L80 launches May 15. ES9 deliveries begin May 27 on the same day as the official launch — nearly unheard of in the Chinese EV industry. A leaked image circulating on Chinese social media suggests NIO is d...

Three stories on the last day of April — all connected to your portfolio. Trump started a war with Iran in February. Oil hit $104. The Strait of Hormuz closed. And Chinese EV exports hit a record high in March — up 140% year over year according to the China Passenger Car Association. Solar, batteries, and EVs combined rose 70% in total export value. China's battery exports alone hit $10 billio...

Six stories from the biggest auto show in history — plus two US macro stories your portfolio needs today. The 2026 Beijing Auto Show opened April 24 as the largest auto show ever staged — 380,000 square meters, 1,451 vehicles, 181 world premieres. The secretary-general of the Passenger Car Association called it the only booming top-level auto show left in the world as Detroit, Frankfurt, and Tokyo...

Five stories today — starting with the one every NIO investor needs to hear right now. A British Virgin Islands holding company called Charge Peak, which owns the patents of bankrupt Israeli startup Better Place, just sent NIO a cease-and-desist letter demanding $250 million — calculated as 2% of NIO's 2025 revenue. They're claiming NIO's battery swap network infringes three European p...

Four stories that all connect to your portfolio today. Tesla reported Q1 2026 earnings — $22.38 billion in revenue and $0.41 EPS, both beats. But deliveries missed at 358,023 units and Tesla built 50,000 more cars than it sold. Capex guidance jumped $5 billion above prior guidance to $25 billion. The stock gave back its after-hours gains on that news. Meanwhile NIO delivered 83,465 vehicles in the...

Four stories today — all connected to your portfolio. Trump extended the Iran ceasefire hours after saying he wouldn't, calling Iran "seriously fractured." JD Vance called off his Pakistan trip. Iran said it hadn't decided whether to show up. And then — extension, no end date. Oil moves tonight. Nothing is resolved. CATL held its Super Tech Day in Beijing. Five new battery produc...

Five stories that matter for your portfolio today. William Li held an internal NIO meeting and told his employees Q2 will be hard. Most CEOs would never say that out loud. Obi breaks down why that's actually the most bullish signal you could get — because honest CEOs outperform, and because Li already identified the solution. Q1 deliveries hit 83,465 vehicles — up 98.3% year over year. Revenue...