Nel ASA: Chart Momentum Collides with Fundamental Realities as Order Intake Plunges 73%

The gap between Nel ASA's soaring share price and its deteriorating financials has rarely been wider. On Friday, the Norwegian electrolyser maker closed at NOK 3.85 in Oslo, up 4.2 percent, and hit €0.356 in German trading as volumes topped four million shares. The stock now sits 86 percent higher year-to-date, with a monthly gain of over 50 percent. Yet beneath the rally lies a business narrative that points in the opposite direction.

First-quarter 2026 figures released by the company tell a sobering story. Revenue from customer contracts slipped 5 percent to NOK 148 million, the EBITDA loss narrowed by NOK 15 million to minus NOK 100 million, and the net loss per share eased from minus NOK 0.10 to minus NOK 0.08. The headline number that has caught investors off guard is order intake: just NOK 85 million in the quarter, a staggering 73 percent decline year-on-year. Nel itself described the inflow as "rather quiet," and the order backlog fell to NOK 1,113 million — down 24 percent from a year ago and 16 percent from the prior quarter.

Professional analysts have responded with measured caution. The average price target among those covering the stock stands at around €0.20, while the nine analysts tracked in Norway have a mean target of NOK 1.867 — both well below Friday’s closing levels. There have been no buy ratings among recent assessments. Yet retail investors, buoyed by rising energy prices and renewed optimism around the energy transition, have pushed the stock sharply higher.

Should investors sell immediately? Or is it worth buying Nel ASA?

The technical picture offers some justification. Nel has broken convincingly above the multi-year downtrend, clearing the €0.24 and €0.28 thresholds. The old resistance zone at €0.279 now functions as key support; as long as the stock holds that level, the breakout signal remains intact. The next major upside barrier sits at €0.415. The stock currently trades 69 percent above its 200-day moving average — a measure of momentum that also underscores vulnerability to profit-taking.

Where the rally lacks a catalyst from fresh corporate news, it finds one in technology. Nel’s new alkaline electrolyser platform, commercially ready after eight years of development and testing at its Herøya site, promises turnkey costs of under USD 1,450 per kilowatt for a 25-megawatt plant operating at 30 bar hydrogen pressure with 99.99 percent purity. The modular system operates at 15 bar, reducing the need for compression and infrastructure. Whether this offering will translate into orders remains the open question.

There are already signs of life on the PEM side. In April, Nel announced two USD 7 million contracts: one for PEM electrolyser equipment for a public utility in Washington state, with commissioning in the first half of 2027, and another for containerised PEM units destined for a European hydrogen refuelling and industrial project. These deals provide some pipeline visibility but do little to fill the gap left by the Q1 intake collapse.

The market is effectively pricing in a sentiment recovery for green hydrogen that the underlying business has yet to validate. Nel’s own guidance for additional orders by the end of the first half of the year will be closely watched as a test of whether the rally has run ahead of reality. For now, the stock is dancing to a rhythm that analysts find hard to follow — and the music could change abruptly if the next round of orders fails to materialise.

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Nel ASA Stock: New Analysis - 29 May

Fresh Nel ASA information released. What's the impact for investors? Our latest independent report examines recent figures and market trends.

Read our updated Nel ASA analysis...

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