Rheinmetall’s €1.9 Billion Contract Blitz Fails to Rekindle the Stock’s Lost Spark

Rheinmetall has clinched more than €1.9 billion in new orders in the span of a single week, yet its share price still sits roughly a third below the peak it touched last September. The disconnect between a swelling order book and a stock that refuses to recapture former highs has become the defining puzzle for investors in Europe’s largest defence contractor.

The latest addition to the tally comes from Romania. On 29 May, the Romanian defence ministry signed procurement contracts under the EU’s SAFE programme, including a €920 million deal with NVL B.V. & Co. KG — the shipbuilding specialist Rheinmetall acquired on 1 March 2026. The order covers two maritime patrol vessels and two diver-intervention boats, marking the first major test of the group’s fledgling naval systems division. The contract was reported by Romanian state news agency AGERPRES; Rheinmetall itself has yet to issue a press release.

Barely days earlier, the Bundeswehr placed two separate orders on German soil. One is for a six-figure quantity of LLM-VarioRay laser-light modules, with a net value in the hundreds of millions of euros and deliveries running through to 2032. The other is a framework agreement for more than 2,000 military transport vehicles worth just over €1 billion, with initial deliveries scheduled for the first half of 2026. Combined, the two German contracts comfortably exceed a billion euros.

Should investors sell immediately? Or is it worth buying Rheinmetall?

Behind these concrete deals looms an even bigger pipeline. Media reports indicate Defence Minister Boris Pistorius is planning to procure up to 1,000 Leopard 2 main battle tanks and 2,500 GTK Boxer wheeled armoured vehicles — a package estimated to be worth as much as €25 billion, to be executed jointly with partner KNDS. No timeline has been set, but the direction is unmistakable. The defence sector’s momentum was also reflected in Renk, the propulsion specialist, which jumped more than 6% on news of the Rheinmetall contracts.

The real bottleneck is no longer demand — it is production capacity. Rheinmetall has told steelmakers such as Salzgitter and Dillinger that it needs higher delivery volumes for armour plate, as its own steel consumption has doubled in two years. Failure to secure supply could delay deliveries despite a full order book. One potential workaround emerged from an unlikely source: Volkswagen works council chief Daniela Cavallo signalled openness to using the Osnabrück plant for military vehicles once Porsche production ends there in 2026. For Rheinmetall, that would offer short-notice capacity in a year when German defence spending is heading toward roughly €70 billion.

The shares closed on Friday at €1,291.60, posting a weekly gain of 5.75%. Yet on a 12-month view, the stock is still down more than 30% from its 52-week high of €1,995 set in late September 2025. The relative strength index of 84 suggests the market is technically overbought, and €1,300 now acts as the next resistance level. In the coming days, investors will watch for any reaction to the Romanian deal when trading opens on Monday, as well as two industry events: the Sea Power for Africa Symposium in Lagos (31 May – 3 June) and the HEMUS defence fair in Plovdiv, Bulgaria (2–6 June). Neither has been flagged as a news catalyst, but in this environment, order flow has a habit of continuing to surprise.

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