Nel ASA Stock: Strong Buy Signal on Charts, But 73% Order Plunge Puts Rally at Risk

Nel ASA shares slide 5% as technical buy signals clash with a 73% plunge in new orders and an analyst price target 30% below the current market price.

The Norwegian hydrogen specialist Nel ASA opened June with a stumble, its shares sliding 5% on Monday to close at €0.33. That retreat followed a blistering rally that has seen the stock more than double from its March low of €0.18 and surge over 73% year-to-date — with some data providers clocking the gain at 78.14%. Yet beneath the chart-driven euphoria, the company’s operating reality tells a very different story.

Technical indicators are flashing contradictory messages. Investing.com upgraded the daily view to “Strong Buy” on June 1, while the relative strength index over 14 days sat at a neutral 52.336. The MACD delivered a buy signal at 0.080, but the picture is far from unanimous: four buy signals faced three neutral and three sell signals in the detail table. Even the moving averages were split, with six buy and six sell signals side by side. The short-term average at 3.82 flashed a sell, while the line at 3.55 triggered a buy — suggesting near-term momentum is fraying even as the medium-term trend remains supportive.

The disconnect between market price and business performance is stark. Nel reported a first-quarter 2026 loss per share of -0.08 NOK, a modest improvement from the -0.10 NOK a year earlier, but still firmly in the red. Revenue from customer contracts fell 5% to 148.1 million Norwegian kroner, with total revenue including other income reaching 152 million kroner — down from 175 million kroner in the prior-year quarter. EBITDA came in at minus 100 million kroner, though that was 15 million kroner better than the year-ago quarter.

The real alarm bell is the order book. New orders during the first quarter totaled just 85 million kroner, a catastrophic 73% plunge from the same period last year. The order backlog stood at 1.113 billion kroner at quarter-end, down 24% year-on-year and 16% from the previous quarter. Nel’s cash position provided some cushion at 1.443 billion kroner, but the trend is unmistakable.

Analysts remain unconvinced by the share price recovery. The consensus price target sits at 2.50 NOK, roughly €0.24 — meaning the stock is currently trading about 30% above where the Street believes it should be. The rally appears to be riding on hope rather than hard numbers, betting on a future hydrogen boom that has yet to materialize in tangible order flow.

Yet institutional interest in Nel as a pure-play hydrogen name persists. The Global X Hydrogen ETF, listed in the US, held Nel as a 5.12% weighting as of May 29, with a position of 20.64 million shares valued at $8.59 million out of total fund assets of $167.96 million. That commitment underscores Nel’s continued relevance among hydrogen-focused investors, even if valuation remains a stretch.

The next fundamental test arrives on July 15, when Nel releases its first-half results. Until then, the stock remains a case study in whether technical momentum can sustain itself without the backing of new business wins — and whether the gap between market enthusiasm and operational reality will eventually close.