• NIO is advancing in Friday's premarket.
• The Chinese EV maker has been hurt by renewed covid worries.
• Two analysts downgraded Nio stock this week.

Nio (NIO) stock is advancing a little over a percentage point in Friday's premarket as the Chinese automaker continues to try to make up the ground it lost on Wednesday. In the middle day of this week, Nio stock gave up 8.5% on the news that Peking University was locked down due to a single covid case. Other rumors emerged that China is experiencing a covid resurgence, with some reports stating that authorities in the industrial hub of Guangzhou had set up temporary treatment centers and quarantine facilities.

This is worrying, because Nio has already halted production twice this year to combat covid, and the news arrives just a week after Nio impressed shareholders by aiming for Q4 44% production growth in just one quarter. That is a lot of growth in a three-month time period, and any single obstacle could set the entire schedule back.

Nio stock market news

In addition to the covid situation battering Chinese share prices this week, Mercedes-Benz cut prices across the board on its Chinese stock of EVs. The lower end of these vehicles is thought to compete directly with Nio and more so now that prices have been reduced. In the case of the Mercedes-Benz EQE, the headline price was clipped by a little over 9%.

This is quite poor timing as higher battery component prices in 2022 have hurt Nio's margins alongside the rest of the industry. Nio's adjusted earnings loss in the third quarter reported one week ago was nearly double what Wall Street had expected, primarily due to these higher input costs.

Taking the lay of the land, two separate analysts cut their price targets on Nio stock on Thursday alone. UBS downgraded Nio from Buy to Neutral and cut its $32 price target the whole way to $13. Cutting your price target by more than half is never a good sign, but because it was about 25% above Nio's current price, shares closed up about 1.3% in the session. Barclays also clipped its price target from $19 to $18, noting the rising costs in the sector, but maintained its Overweight rating.

One piece of news that may be spurring the Nio share price ahead is Thursday's Alibaba (BABA) earnings. As the most popular Chinese stock in the US market, Alibaba's quarterly earnings impressed the market by beating expectations for profitability and guiding for higher Q4 revenue. Other Chinese ADRs like NIO are benefitting from their national equity market standard-bearer.

Nio stock market forecast

Despite Wednesday's drawdown, Nio stock is 5.3% lower than a week ago, moving averages still have it looking bullish. The Moving Average Convergence Divergence (MACD) remains crossed over and driving upward, and the 9-day moving average remains 26 cents ahead of the 21-day average. Both of these instances should have traders watching for further upside price action.

Resistance at $12 from November 7, as well as the 14th and 15th, will be top of mind for bulls at present. Beyond here lies another resistance point at $13 and then again at $16.54. The last one has a number of price action activities surrounding it and giving it an air of greater significance. A close above $16.54 places Nio stock in rally territory. Support sits between $9 and $9.50.

NIO 1-day stock