Historically, in the 1970s and early 80s, inflation seemed very bad for stocks. Single digit p/e ratios. I'm not clear on whether it would be the same today. One argument might be that most of the stock market capitalization is so globalized these days that devaluing the US dollar shouldn't have much effect on revenue.
In other words, maybe US stocks would constitute a safe haven currency too. But I can't say I'm confident of that.
I know of them from before/outside HN; I haven't noticed them being especially common here. I think of it as a petri dish of investing clickbait.
The merit, if any, is that it incentivizes writing on any given public company, but most of it is worthless.
The other thing, that wouldn't be on HN, is they link to earnings call transcripts. I don't know if there is some other easy way to obtain them, but it is the channel I'm aware of and seems useful.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24317288