Being a newcomer within a very long-established and somewhat traditional global industry is not easy.

The automotive industry is a case in point. It has been over 139 years since Karl Benz managed to successfully produce the first motorised vehicle, and since then, huge global conglomerates have built economies of scale to compete against each other fiercely in every corner of the world whilst evolving gradually rather than taking a revolutionary position.

Suddenly, in 2014, the now infamous Elon Musk came from outside the traditional manufacturing or automotive sectors and disrupted an age-old, highly polished, and well-established industry to the extent that even Mercedes Benz, the company that invented the car all those years ago, has begun making electric cars to compete with those introduced by Elon Musk's Tesla company.

More recently, some even newer names have entered the electric vehicle arena, some of which listed their stock on public exchanges in North America with high-value listings despite little or no market share, having done so via controversial SPAC 'blank check' companies toward an audience which, for many, would have heard the names of such companies for the first time.

One such firm is Rivian Automotive, which listed its stock on the NASDAQ exchange in November 2021 at a price of $78 per share. Since then, Rivian, whose main product is an electric pickup truck, has been incredibly volatile, trading at a lot less than $10 per share more recently, but had been fluctuating around $25 in December.

As the New York trading session came to a close yesterday, Rivian stock was among the top risers on FXOpen's TickTrader platform, concluding the trading day at $10.31 per share according to FXOpen pricing.

Whilst some reports in mainstream media consider that the increase in value of Rivian stock during yesterday's session was the fourth day of gains for the company, it is important to note that overall this year, similar reports cite that Rivian stock has depreciated by 48.3%.

At the end of the trading day today, Rivian Automotive will announce its earnings for the first quarter of 2024, which is likely to make for interesting reading given the company's rare standing as a listed firm that still appears to have the status of a startup in an industry which is dominated by world famous corporate giants with illustrious histories dating back to the post-industrial revolution period.

Past performance is often interesting, but not necessarily indicative of current and future movements, but Rivian Automotive stock has been volatile in every post earnings session for the past five announcements.

This is, therefore, an interesting one to observe.

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