Nel ASA Stock Takes a Technical Breather as Investors Weigh Cost-Cutting Electrolyzer Against Bleak Q1 Numbers

Nel ASA shares stall after 80% rally to 52-week high; profit-taking and no orders highlight gap between technical momentum and weak fundamentals. Q1 revenue down 5%, net loss persists. RSI neutral.

The shares of Norwegian electrolyser maker Nel ASA have stalled after an explosive rally that carried them to a fresh 52-week high of €0.36 on May 25. Profit-taking quickly followed, and the stock closed at €0.34, roughly 3% below that peak after a session that ranged between €0.338 and €0.35. The pause is unsurprising: the stock has surged more than 80% since the start of the year and roughly doubled from its 52-week low of €0.18 touched as recently as early March.

The sideways drift is widely seen as a healthy digestion of those outsized gains. The share price now sits some 66% above its 200-day moving average of €0.21, a level that had already signalled sharp overextension. The relative strength index has meanwhile eased to just below 50, reading as neutral rather than flashing either overbought or oversold conditions.

What makes the rally all the more remarkable is the absence of fresh operational news. The last meaningful company announcement came on May 6, when Nel unveiled its next-generation pressurised alkaline electrolyser platform. The new system delivers green hydrogen at an output pressure of 30 bar and promises to cut total system costs for a 25-megawatt plant to under $1,450 per kilowatt — a drastic reduction from the $3,000 per kilowatt or more typical of earlier industry projects. While the technology sparked enthusiasm, no corresponding order flow has materialised.

That gap between technical momentum and financial reality is stark. Nel’s first-quarter 2026 revenue from customer contracts slipped nearly 5% year on year to 148.1 million Norwegian kroner. The company reported a net loss of NOK 0.08 per share. On an EBITDA basis, the deficit narrowed to minus NOK 100 million from minus NOK 115 million in the year-ago period, but remains firmly in the red. A cash pile of roughly NOK 1.4 billion provides some breathing room, giving management time to execute a turnaround without immediate financing pressure.

For now, the rally is being sustained almost entirely by sector-wide optimism about green hydrogen and the promise of Nel’s new electrolyser platform. The critical test will come with the next quarterly report: if Nel can convert that technological milestone into tangible order intake, the stock may find the fundamental support it currently lacks. Until then, the share price reflects a bet on future margins against a backdrop of lingering losses.