200,000 people who like cars can not be wrong.

It seems to have been the stock market's conclusion already this morning.

The initial rise of 10 percent when Volvo Cars made its stock market premiere this morning may have seemed a lot.

However, in view of the fact that the subscription price prior to the listing was set at the lowest possible level in the interval stated in the offer, the rise can perhaps rather be described as a failure.

What happened next, however, can probably be described as a success: the price increase just continued.

Up 24 percent means that Volvo is worth almost 40 billion more at the end of the day than just before nine in the morning.

Apparently there were few who signed up to then sell off with a profit immediately.

When it turned out that many intended to keep their shares, the share gained further momentum.

Emotions in investment decisions

Pension funds and other institutional investors have hesitated, and some even given up, in this IPO.

But in the end, a significant number of private individuals have rushed to the rescue.

They were 90,000 until Monday.

This week, the crowd grew to over 200,000.

Of course, I do not know how many of these are Volvo nostalgics or have been influenced by the media or others who have expressed said nostalgia.

But a qualified guess is that it is good for almost everyone.

The first time I had to deal with the Swedish car industry as a journalist was in the late 1980s.

It had then, and has since, had the peculiarity that its owners, from small savers to car executives in Detroit (General Motors and Ford), to financial families in Sweden (Wallenberg), tend to connect the whole emotional life when making investment decisions.

I used to say that Saab's passenger car production would have been closed down by the 1970s if it had manufactured, say sewing machines instead, at the same relentless rate of loss.

But it took several more decades before it went bankrupt.

But now, of course, it is only to be hoped that confidence in the Volvo share will continue.

What speaks for itself is that Volvo is a larger car manufacturer now than any Swedish-based car manufacturer has been so far in history.

Volvo has become so thanks to Chinese Geely, which has been responsible for the resources for the past ten years.

(There, by the way, it feels more unclear how any emotions have governed: difficult to determine as the owner Li Shufu, also Volvo's chairman, has consistently avoided the public.)

Several clouds of unrest

But the owner, who remains with over 80 percent of the shares, can be turned into a problem for Volvo at any time.

In practice, the Chinese state has great influence over companies and their owners in China.

In recent times, it has repeatedly struck with sudden restrictions, fines and bans.

It could affect Geely and owner Li Shufu as well.

In addition to the owner, there are more clouds of unrest:

  •  Volvo must manage the transition to electric cars in its own business.

  •  Volvo's half-owned electric car company Polestar will be listed separately in New York this spring.

    Volvo Car's market capitalization is based on that listing being successful, with the sky-high valuation that pure electric car companies, such as Tesla, currently have.

  • If the Volvo share is not to flop in the same way as the previous popular share, the Telia share, it is also required that the stock market keeps the mood together, and does not fall for several years, as after Telia's IPO in 2000.

But so far, shareholders can rejoice.

Not least CEO Håkan Samuelsson.

Old and new shares in total have made him SEK 70 million richer today.