Nel ASA’s Rally Banks on Future Promise While the Present Delivers Little

Norway’s Nel ASA has staged a dramatic recovery on the Oslo Stock Exchange, with its shares nearly doubling from a March trough, yet the company’s latest earnings offer scant justification for the move. The stock closed Friday at €0.35 on Tradegate, just shy of a fresh 52-week high of €0.36 hit on May 25, pushing its year-to-date gain to 82.58%. The surge has been driven by product launches and a strategic partnership rather than any new order news — a disconnect that leaves the rally on borrowed time unless commercial reality catches up.

The technical breakout has been decisive. After years languishing in a downtrend, Nel’s shares first cleared the €0.24 resistance, then blew through €0.28. That move broke the multi-year bearish structure, and the stock now trades 67.54% above its 200-day moving average. The 50-day average stands at €0.24, meaning the current price overshoots it by more than 40%. Weekly momentum remains strong — a 6.71% gain in the past seven days and a 47.37% rise over the past month. The relative strength index at 49.6 suggests there is still room to run before becoming overbought.

The catalyst for this optimism is twofold. On the World Hydrogen Summit in Rotterdam, Nel and its largest shareholder, Samsung E&A, unveiled CompassH2-A+, a 100-megawatt electrolyser configuration that bundles Nel’s pressurized alkaline technology with a one-point performance guarantee. For project developers, such a guarantee could unlock cheaper financing — a critical hurdle in the green hydrogen sector. Separately, Nel launched the commercial version of its next-generation alkaline platform in May 2026, a system developed over eight years and tested at scale in Herøya. The company claims capital expenditure savings of 40% to 60% compared with standard systems.

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

The operational reality, however, paints a different picture. Nel’s first-quarter 2026 revenue came in at 148 million Norwegian kroner, a 5% decline from the prior year. EBITDA remained deep in the red at negative 100 million kroner, though that marked a 15-million-kroner improvement year-on-year. The order book contracted 24% to roughly 1.1 billion kroner, with new order intake of just 85 million kroner. Against that backdrop, the market is clearly betting on a future that has yet to materialise in the company’s backlog.

Nel does have time on its side. Cash and equivalents total about 1.4 billion kroner, providing a cushion as it waits for the new platform to translate into meaningful orders. The share price action suggests investors are willing to look past the weak quarterly numbers for now, but the patience may not be indefinite. Without concrete follow-on orders that turn the technology promise into billable revenue, the rally lacks a fundamental anchor.

Chart support now sits at €0.279, the level the stock reclaimed on its way up. A break below that would open the door to a pullback toward €0.235, while on the upside the immediate resistance remains €0.366. Beyond that, the next major target is €0.415. Given the annualised 30-day volatility of nearly 100%, swings in either direction should be expected. The stock has surged from a 52-week low of €0.18 to a high of €0.36 — a doubling that has been achieved without any fresh company-specific news beyond the platform launch announced in early May.

High-stakes waiting games are nothing new for hydrogen stocks, and Nel’s trajectory over the coming quarters will hinge on whether the new product lineup can convert speculative momentum into revenue growth. For now, the rally remains technically intact above €0.279, but the underlying numbers leave it exposed to profit-taking the moment the market refocuses on the present.

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Nel ASA Stock: New Analysis - 30 May

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

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