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

continue to shrink or cancel.

Tesla skipped it. Again.

NIO brought all three brands — NIO, Onvo, and Firefly —

under one roof for the first time. The ES9 made its public

debut with over 40 industry-first technologies, dual Shenji

NX9031 chips, and SkyRide full active suspension.

Official launch late May. Deliveries June 1.

The CEOs were the real show. Lei Jun of Xiaomi visited

NIO, Xpeng, Li Auto, and BYD's booths and gave printed

T-shirts to Li Bin, Li Xiang, and He Xiaopeng — photos

hit every Chinese hot search immediately. Wang Chuanfu —

the richest man in China — took the subway to the venue

and stood at the BYD booth for six hours straight.

Huawei spread across 4,400+ square meters with five brands

on one platform — and is creating a brand identity problem

nobody has answered yet. Xpeng showcased Level 4 autonomous

driving with the GX model.

Back in the US — Big Tech reports this week. Apple,

Microsoft, Meta, and Amazon all drop earnings. The Fed

meets Tuesday with a 100% chance of no rate cut as oil

stays above $100 and Goldman raised their Q4 Brent

forecast to $90 per barrel.

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The content creator receives no additional compensation from

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Courtside Financial. Hosted by Obi.

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 patents.

Here's why I'm not worried. This is not a lawsuit — it's

a negotiating letter. Better Place went bankrupt in 2013.

NIO was founded in 2014 and has been filing its own

independent battery swap patents since 2017. NIO responded

directly — their technology is "materially different" and

developed through years of independent R&D. And the three

patents cover European operations only — about 60 of NIO's

4,000 global swap stations.

The timing is telling. This letter dropped the day before

Beijing Auto Show with NIO stock up 95% in 12 months.

That's not coincidence. That's a shakedown. Buy the dip

if it comes.

On the same day — NIO delivered its 100,000th

third-generation ES8 in Beijing. 100,000 units above

300,000 yuan in a market where 56% of dealerships

are losing money. William Li didn't pick that timing

by accident.

Israel and Lebanon extended their ceasefire three weeks

after Trump personally joined the White House meeting.

Three more weeks of breathing room for markets.

Google dropped $750 million to help companies deploy AI

faster — the real AI battleground is now implementation,

not model building.

And a startup called Noscroll launched an AI bot that

does your doomscrolling for you. The irony for this

channel writes itself.

Beijing Auto Show media day is tomorrow.

This channel covers everything.

---

📊 The platform I use for tracking institutional moves

and NIO earnings:

🔗 Moomoo: https://start.moomoo.com/0AY120

This content is a paid ad from Moomoo Financial Inc. (MFI).

The content creator receives no additional compensation from

the firm and MFI makes no representation of completeness or

accuracy of any content beyond the advertisement.

---

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Courtside Financial. Hosted by Obi.

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 same quarter —

up 98.3% year over year. The growth gap between these two

companies is the story.

China's auto price war just paused heading into Beijing Auto

Show. Three years of below-cost pricing, collapsing margins,

and industry-wide bleeding — and it stopped this week.

That pause is a structural tailwind for NIO which was

designed to compete above the price war's reach.

Chinese automakers held 80 car launches in March 2026.

Sales dropped 15% in the same month. That's the fast consumer

goods trap — brands launching constantly while buyers wait

for the next cheaper model. NIO operates above 300,000 yuan

where that trap doesn't apply the same way.

Beijing Auto Show opens Friday. 1,451 vehicles. 181 world

premieres. Tesla skipped it again. NIO is at booth E203

with all three brands. ES9 momentum, ES8 milestone,

and a potential Gen 5 battery swap announcement.

This channel covers it all starting Friday.

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Courtside Financial. Hosted by Obi.

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 products.

The headline: a full charge from 10% to 98% in 6 minutes and 27

seconds — a new global record. The Kirin Condensed Matter Battery

delivers 1,500 km of range. And Naxtra — the world's first

mass-producible sodium-ion battery — goes into production by end

of 2026.

CATL supplies NIO. Better batteries strengthen the swap network.

And NIO already owns 4,000 stations — the infrastructure

CATL is now trying to build from scratch.

The 2026 Onvo L90 launched today with NIO's in-house Shenji

NX9031 chip for the first time. Nvidia chips out. NIO silicon in.

Deliveries start May 9th. The L80 comes next.

NIO stock is up 95% over the past 12 months — its best run since

2020. The fundamentals are finally matching the promise.

Beijing Auto Show starts April 24th. This week is loud.

Courtside Financial. Hosted by Obi.

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 growth is expected to outpace delivery growth. ES9

early orders from non-NIO buyers are already 1.5 times the

ES8 at the same pre-sales period. That's total addressable

market expansion in real time.

The broader Chinese auto industry is bleeding. The 200,000

yuan segment has become the kill zone. NIO operates above

300,000 yuan where margins still exist and brand matters

more than spreadsheets.

Sam Altman's World project is expanding to Tinder, Zoom,

DocuSign, Shopify, and Okta. Iris scanning to prove you're

human in an internet he helped make more confusing.

A man hacked the US Supreme Court filing system, bragged

about it on Instagram, and walked out with probation.

And a disgruntled researcher dumped working Windows exploit

code online because of a conflict with Microsoft. Criminals

are actively using it. Every one of these stories is a

tailwind for cybersecurity spending.

Courtside Financial. Hosted by Obi.

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William Li said at the ES9 launch that people can now forget

about MPVs. Buick — with 27 years of MPV history in China —

responded publicly on Weibo and invited Li to sit in their

new Century before making that judgment.

Today Obi breaks down what's actually happening beneath

the brand beef.

The numbers tell the real story: 11.88 million SUVs sold

in China in 2025 vs just 1.06 million MPVs — and the gap

is growing. The market has already voted.

The ES9 starts at 420K yuan, the Buick Century starts at

470K yuan. They're fighting for the same wallet. But the

ES9 isn't just competing on product — it's competing on

technology, ecosystem, and the kind of brand momentum

that has people in Chinese restaurants talking about

NIO stock for the first time.

Buick's response is good marketing. But when a legacy brand

publicly defends its category against you — that's not

strength. That's confirmation you're winning the narrative.

ES9 deliveries start June 1st. 46 days away.

Courtside Financial. Hosted by Obi.

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Six stories today that connect around a single theme —

the companies that survive consolidation own the decade.

Nissan's Dongfeng joint venture was caught running a coordinated

troll army against Li Auto during a product launch. Leaked internal

documents exposed Li Auto's models as explicit targets. China's

Ministry of Industry and Information Technology stepped in.

This is happening against the backdrop of China's auto industry

hitting a 4.1% profit margin — its lowest since 2015. Over half

of Chinese dealerships lost money last year. The price war nearly

destroyed the industry. NIO just posted their first quarterly

profit in this environment. That's the story.

Meta is projected to surpass Google as the world's largest

digital advertising platform in 2026 at $243 billion —

Zuckerberg's quiet comeback is one of the greatest in

modern corporate history.

Citadel's Ken Griffin publicly warned of global recession

if the Strait of Hormuz stays closed. The Iran ceasefire

expires next week.

Over 1,000 Hollywood insiders signed an open letter opposing

the Paramount and Warner Bros Discovery merger.

And Hailey Bieber turned Justin's Coachella headline set

into a Rhode brand product launch. That's a founder mindset.

Courtside Financial. Hosted by Obi.

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Five stories that paint a clear picture of where the economy

is heading — and one from China that you are genuinely not ready for.

The S&P 500 closed Monday at its highest level since before the

Iran war — fully erasing its losses — while oil surged to $104

a barrel the same day after Hormuz peace talks collapsed.

One of them has better information. Historically it's oil.

LVMH missed earnings — and when wealthy people stop buying

luxury goods it's a leading indicator of broader consumer anxiety.

PwC's new study of 1,200+ executives found 74% of AI's economic

gains are going to just 20% of companies — the ones using AI

to reinvent their business models, not just cut costs.

OpenAI publicly said Microsoft has "limited their ability" to reach

clients while announcing a new Amazon alliance and London office.

The world's most important AI partnership is breaking down publicly.

Intel is up 58% in nine days. Left-for-dead stocks can come back.

And Seres — the Chinese automaker that builds Huawei's Aito brand —

just received a patent for a built-in vehicle toilet.

China's comment sections have not recovered.

Courtside Financial. Hosted by Obi.

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Four stories today that all connect back to NIO and your portfolio.

William Li took the stage at the China EV 100 Forum urging the

entire Chinese auto industry to standardize batteries and chips —

a move he says could unlock over $14 billion in industry-wide

savings. NIO's own ES9 has over 4,000 chips from 1,000+ varieties.

NIO is cutting internally to ~400 types.

A 36Kr analysis reveals China's auto chip self-sufficiency is only

25% — 75% still imported. DRAM prices jumped 180% in 3 months as

Samsung, SK Hynix and Micron redirect capacity to AI.

One mid-tier smart EV's memory cost went from $100 to $290.

The $29K pure EV sedan market is dominated by Tesla and Xiaomi —

and 2026 may be the last window for anyone else to crack it.

And Trump just announced a US Navy blockade of the Strait of Hormuz

after 21 hours of failed peace talks in Islamabad. Experts warn

elevated oil prices could persist through end of 2026 — making

NIO's battery swap model more valuable every single day.

Courtside Financial. Hosted by Obi.

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Most NIO investors are focused on delivery numbers. Not enough

people are talking about the man leading the company and why

he actually has something to lose.

William Li founded NIO in 2014 with ~$150M of his own money.

When the company was going bankrupt in 2020 he pledged his

personal shares to fund $100M in emergency notes out of his

own pocket. Then came the Hefei Miracle — a $1B lifeline

from the Hefei government that saved the company.

Today Obi breaks down that full story, explains why the 2026

$1.1B performance pay package is actually one of the most

bullish signals in the NIO thesis, and covers Sam Altman

getting a Molotov cocktail thrown at his house, Snap's AI

glasses, StubHub's $10M FTC settlement, and YouTube raising

Premium prices again.

How quickly people forget. How many never knew.

Courtside Financial. Hosted by Obi.

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