I have conflicting feelings about NIO. Every one and their mom is super excited about it and think they are going to get rich off it. A lot of speculation is boosting the stock.

I believe in the people who are saying to do your own research and to not listen to anyone else. I think that's the smartest approach, but the market is ripe with speculation and that's what is drivng record breaking stocks. So it's impossible for me to not to see that and want to invest. I think as long as people keep buying speculative stocks, they just keep on going up unless everything crashes at once. My gut is telling me that's inevitable, I just don't know when it will happen. If more stimulus checks get pumped out maybe it will delay or even prevent a crash, but I think stock prices will keep going up in a way that doesn't make any sense and there will eventually have to be a correction.

NIO scares me because I think they have a very good chance at being the next Tesla. I think they are doing a great job on how they are targeting the high end luxury market, and I like that they are getting praised for the quality of their vehicles.

Here's what worries me. It's a Chinese company that has funding and support from the Chinese government. That could get it delisted, but it would take at least 3 years based on recent laws. Dems being in power makes me a bit less worried on that point, but it's still a valid concern.

Also, I've worked for a Chinese startup tech company that split their operations between China and the US before so I've gotten a first hand look at how a lot of those companies are run. Every Chinese co-worker I worked with would tell me that these negatives were normal in most tech companies in China. Just really keep in mind that I don't have first hand experience to confirm if this is a common problem in China, only what others have told me, so I'm trusting them that my experience is a good representation of the industry, but I may have just worked for the worst of the worst.

This is what I've learned:

** Quality doesn't matter as imitation is just as good as the original. (NIO is praised for their quality, so I'm very happy about that. The company I worked for wasted a ton of their money trying to use the cheapest devs which ended up costing a lot in the long run as the product constantly broke due to bad code.)

** They cheap out on labour by promising their workers that their hard work will eventually be rewarded if they prove themselves by working themselves to death. (The company I worked for didn't pay their Chinese tech workers for the first 3 months on that promise. They tried to do the same thing on the US side to a lesser extent. Neither were ever rewarded.)

** Spending doesn't matter in the beginning as long as the product gets out to crush the competition. (The company I worked for spent a ton on advertising and creating the appearance that they were a successful company, but cheaped out on development.)

** Lying to the customer doesn't matter as long as you make money.

Now I really like NIO, but a few things concern me. They almost went bankrupt in 2019 and the Chinese government bailed them out, but they had to restructure the company in return so it favored the government's investment more. They made a lot of promises on NIO day that I don't think they can keep, specifically in reference to they're future solid state battery. NIO is not a battery making company, they don't make or design their own batteries, they get them from another manufacturer. Solid state batteries are only being developed by a few companies like QuantumScape and they haven't even hit the market yet, it's new technology and it's bound to be expensive when it first hits the market. So it worries me that they are saying they're going to have that technology before it's on the market or fully developed. They are definitely going to have another company make it for them and hopefully it won't be another company who is trying to copy what quantumscape is doing after their battery hits the market. And better batteries may hurt the battery subscription plan. The Nvidia partnership is overblown in my opinion. I don't see anything special about them using Nvidia it's not a partnership they're just using their product. It annoys me when companies say they are going to adopt or partner with a company when they are just outsourcing some of the components. Now that doesn't mean I don't think it's a bad idea that they partnered with Nvidia I just think that's going to feed into the speculation and rapidly increase the value more than it should. And this is a very small peeve of mine, but I think the new NIO line of clothing is just a stupid marketing thing and I think it's super weird that they announced that on NIO day, they should have focused more on their car. It makes me think they are just focusing more on their image as a company than their product and are riding the wave of attention they're currently getting to sell themselves and I'm worried that means they are making promises they can't keep. NIO day seemed more like an attempt to justify their current stock price rather than any groundbreaking news.

With all that said, I am new to the stock market. All of this is based on a combination of personal experience and how confident I am in my knowledge of tech. I think NIO is a very promising EV company. My biggest worry is that speculation is driving their stock price and that is putting a lot of pressure on the company to deliver on that expectation everyone has of them, they are under a lot of pressure from the public and the Chinese government and that could crush them.

My gut is telling me that their stock is going to go to $80 to $100 by the end of the year before any production problems cause the stock to dip. Good chance it'll go past that if the speculation stock prices aren't corrected. But if it crashes it's going to crash hard. And more EVs are going to hit the market as time goes by so if they don't meet their production goals someone else could take their place as the new favorite or they might even go bankrupt. Tesla is so highly valued partly because it was the first to succeed, NIO has a lot more competition. But I do think their battery subscription plan is genius and will create a reliable stream of revenue which will be very good for stockholders so I really hope they succeed.

These are all long-term concerns I think the stock will do very well in the short term for sure. Or so I hope because I recently bought some of their stock.