What happened
Shares of Chinese electric-vehicle maker NIO (NIO 3.49%) were trading down modestly at midday on Wednesday, a few hours ahead of the company's second-quarter earnings report, expected after the U.S. markets close.
As of noon EDT, NIO's American depositary shares were down about 2% from Tuesday's closing price.
So what
There was no major news moving NIO's shares on Wednesday, though the company will report its second-quarter results after the U.S. markets close today. Wall Street analysts polled by Thomson Reuters expect NIO to report a loss of $0.11 per American depositary share, on average, on revenue of $1.28 billion.
Personally I think NIO might do a bit better than that, and at least one analyst agrees. Edison Yu of Deutsche Bank, who has covered NIO closely, said in a note on Monday that he expects a narrower loss -- about $0.07 per share -- on revenue of $1.32 billion. Simply put, Yu and his team think that NIO may have been able to keep costs down a bit more than expected, which may have helped its margins in the period.
During the earnings call Wednesday night, NIO's CEO will update investors on the ongoing semiconductor shortage -- and on the company's push to deploy more of its automated battery-swap stations. Image source: NIO.
NIO delivered almost 22,000 vehicles in the second quarter, more than double its year-ago result and near the high end of the guidance range it provided with its first-quarter report. But its deliveries in June fell a bit short of totals reported by rivals Xpeng (XPEV -1.39%) and Li Auto (LI -3.79%) because of supply chain constraints, leading some analysts to speculate that NIO's growth might be subdued until its next new models arrive in 2022.
Given the ongoing uncertainty around semiconductor supplies, NIO's guidance could have an outsize influence on its stock price in coming days, relative to its actual second-quarter results.
Now what
As I mentioned above, NIO will release its second-quarter results after the U.S. close today. But U.S. auto investors who want to listen in on NIO's second-quarter earnings call should note it will start at a fairly late hour: 9:00 p.m. EDT, which is 9:00 a.m. Thursday morning Beijing time.
