Northvolt raises $1.2B convertible note from BlackRock • Hacker News Board

Re: Northvolt raises $1.2B convertible note from BlackRock

#101

Post by FredPret » Tue, Aug 22, 2023, 11:23 PM UTC

defrost wrote: post #16

FredPret wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Owning a stock is a verb. Allocating capital takes a lot of work, and a lot of courage. Gordon Gecko is a fictional character. Having said that, Blackstone/rock has grown far too much. People need to stop sending their money to their index funds.

> Allocating capital takes a lot of work, and a lot of courage. Less so when you've captured government and setting|opposing policy at Senate|POTUS level (in US, in a similar manner elsewhere) to worsen health insurance and housing access to your own benefit. The Ruling Class S01E03 American Buyout did a tidy little episode on the downsides of The Blackstone Group. https://www.mgmplus.com/series/the-ruling-class/watc…

I'm a capitalist and I agree. Capitalism works best in a democracy so the tragedy of the commons and negative externalities can be controlled.

Re: Northvolt raises $1.2B convertible note from BlackRock

#102

Post by gruez » Wed, Aug 23, 2023, 3:02 AM UTC

FredPret wrote: post #100

gruez wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Yes but optimally there would be at least some proliferation in index funds, and they would index differently. Great, now investors have to choose between which index fund to pick. What makes you think the average investor is qualified to make that choice? By definition one of them will make above average returns, and the other below average returns, so half of investors will make below average returns and the othe…

I'm not saying average investors are qualified to pick index funds or stocks. I'm saying they really ought to be. Money is a form of power, and blindly applying it in a spot just because everyone else is doing the same strikes me as not optimal. Our saving grace is probably that the S&P500 is extraordinarily well-chosen. It's diversified across place, industry, and to some extent size. And it helps that America is an…

> I'm not saying average investors are qualified to pick index funds or stocks. I'm saying they really ought to be.

In the sense they "ought" to vote, or they should do it because it would result in better returns for them personally? I don't think the former is a good reason, because I don't think the average investor is going to do a better job at allocating capital than wall st analysts. The latter has empirically been proven false. Actively managed funds have collectively underperformed passively managed funds, and daytrading retail investors almost always lose money.

>Money is a form of power, and blindly applying it in a spot just because everyone else is doing the same strikes me as not optimal.

People investing money in passive funds aren't messing with the price discovery process. Since they buy everything in proportion to market cap, they're not picking winners or losers. As long as some active participants exist, price discovery will still happen. If their numbers drop critically low, the market might be more be less accurate or be more susceptible to manipulation, but we're not anywhere near that point yet. In contrast, encouraging "average investors" to pick stocks absolutely does mess up the price discovery process. The average person is dumb and spends way too much time chasing whatever they heard on news yesterday night. A horde of retail investors likely reduces the overall "intelligence" of the market (through idiotic trades) and likely results in losses for them (from more sophisticated investors taking advantage of their behavior).

Re: Northvolt raises $1.2B convertible note from BlackRock

#103

Post by DanielHB » Wed, Aug 23, 2023, 7:07 AM UTC

etrautmann wrote: post #35

The photo in this article appears to be empty shelving "inside the Northvolt facility?"

Most of the lines in the main factory (Northvolt Ett) are still under construction

Re: Northvolt raises $1.2B convertible note from BlackRock

#104

Post by DanielHB » Wed, Aug 23, 2023, 7:12 AM UTC

k_bx wrote: post #3

I was recently shopping for an UPS + couple 100Ah Batteries solution and failed to find an easy way to buy something not manufactured in China. Northvolt seems to not be present in retail at all. Are there any good places I should've checked out?

I work at Northvolt and we don't do any sale of cells to retail at the moment

The only retail product we offer at the moment is:

https://northvolt.com/products/systems/voltpacks/mobile/

and I am not even sure you can just outright buy it or only lease it

You can't just ship by mail such big cells due to fire hazards so I don't expect you will be able to just buy one

Re: Northvolt raises $1.2B convertible note from BlackRock

#105

Post by junofan » Wed, Aug 23, 2023, 3:10 PM UTC

ericjmorey wrote: post #88

jongjong wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. Investing with one of the huge investment firms such as BlackRock, Vanguard or State Street feels like investing in the erosion of democracy and the monopolization of the means of production. The optimal strategy for them is to coerce all the companies that they invest in to only do business with each other in order to completely lock new competitors out of the market. This is very bad for consumers and socie…

Vanguard literally provides for investment in every security. All of them. Every single one. I currently own interest in every equity security available to a US investor by purchasing a single ETF. How is it that Vanguard (which is owned by its funds which in turn are owned by individual investors in those funds) would benefit from coercing literally every publicly traded company from transacting with every other non…

The shenanigans are thought to be around M&A and alternatives. A company like Vanguard can use market power to juice its more profitable products by depressing prices.