Nel ASA Stock: Technical Fever Meets Fundamental Caution

Nel ASA shares surge 75% YTD, breaking resistance to 52-week highs, but declining revenues and lack of fresh catalysts raise questions about sustainability.

Nel ASA’s shares have staged a dramatic turnaround in recent weeks, punching through key resistance levels and notching a fresh 52-week high of €0.366 on May 25. The Oslo-listed hydrogen specialist has left its multi-year downtrend behind, yet the rally is unfolding in a curiously quiet news environment. With the stock now trading around €0.34, investors are asking whether price action alone can sustain the momentum.

The technical picture is undeniably impressive. After breaking decisively above the €0.24 and €0.28 hurdles, the stock posted a 30-day gain of roughly 48% and a year-to-date advance of around 75%. A mild 4.5% pullback on Tuesday gave way to Wednesday’s flattish trade, leaving the shares just below the annual peak. Chart watchers see the next significant upside target at €0.415, while the February 2026 low of €0.173 – some 87% below current levels – provides a stark reminder of how far sentiment has shifted.

But beneath the surface, the business itself is sending a more tempered signal. Nel’s first-quarter results, released in May, showed contract revenues of 148 million Norwegian kroner, a 5% decline from the 155 million kroner recorded a year earlier. Total revenues and other income came in at 152 million kroner. Order intake reached 85 million kroner, while the order backlog stood at 1.113 billion kroner at quarter-end. The EBITDA loss narrowed by 15 million kroner to -100 million kroner, a step in the right direction, but the top-line contraction leaves the company reliant on cost discipline rather than revenue growth.

The absence of fresh commercial triggers has not dampened the stock’s rally. The last major corporate headline was the launch of Nel’s new pressurized alkaline electrolyzer platform on May 6, an eight-year development project that promises efficiency gains, cost reductions and better scalability for green hydrogen projects. That announcement, plus a US$7 million PEM equipment order back in April, provided the narrative foundation for the current move. Since then, however, the news flow has been sparse, and the market appears to be trading the broader hydrogen theme rather than any specific corporate catalyst.

This creates a delicate balancing act. On one hand, the technical breakout is unmistakable and could attract momentum-driven flows. On the other, the fundamental picture remains unconfirmed: declining contract revenues, a lower year-on-year order backlog, and a reliance on an unproven platform to generate future orders. Nel’s ample liquidity of roughly 1.4 billion kroner buys time, but it cannot substitute for new customer commitments.

With the next quarterly report due on July 15, the stock’s direction may hinge on whether Nel can translate its technological progress into commercial wins. Until then, the rally remains a bet on momentum – technically solid, but still awaiting its fundamental validation.