Fluence Energy Inc. - FLNC

Which company will be next?

Earlier today, Blue Orca Research put out a report on Fluence Energy (FLNC). Fluence first appeared as an idea in December 2022 and has received a couple of updates in the interim.

I don’t know the reason why other short-oriented services have a habit of picking up on many of my names; perhaps we all tend to think alike. In this instance they point to a recent lawsuit by a related party that until now has been unknown and undisclosed to the public, as their primary motivator for writing their report. Many of their other points, however, from pricing to gross margins to issues at prior installations, were all part of my original spiel over a year ago.

Since switching to the Substack distribution model only 5 months ago, this is the SIXTH Short Ideas name to receive scrutiny from an “activist” service (RCM, INOD, GDHG, ISPR, and XPEL were the others). Two of those ideas (GDHG and ISPR) were picked up only a few weeks after publishing here, while the other four (RCM, INOD, XPEL and FLNC) are all somewhat older stories. A seventh Idea, MQ, was tangentially involved in a recent NBC news story that highlighted some disturbing allegations (see update from last week).

Over the years, I have literally had dozens of names picked up by one service or another. A couple months before my Substack transition I put out an idea on APLD, after which another couple of services picked up on it.

Since I actively look for names and ideas that nobody else seems to be highlighting, I expect this pattern to continue into the future (instances where I miss a prior research service or activist role are rather rare).

The only thing these Ideas all had in common was that my subscribers were able to hear about them first and decide for themselves whether or not the Idea had enough merit and provide them a jumpstart for their own due diligence if they wished to act on that information. Yes the activists bring forward their own allegations, but the core idea in most cases remains the same.

I don’t claim to be right on all of my names all of the time, and I also don’t claim to do the level of diligence most of the activists purport to do. Also, just because an activist or another research outfit chooses to highlight one of my ideas doesn’t necessarily make it any better or worse; we all get things wrong.

What I do strive is to be first so people can make their own decisions before a name gets carried away (along with any potential borrow) by the following crowd.

If you value the time and effort it takes, and if any of this makes sense, please feel free to follow, share, and hopefully become a subscriber.

Thank you.