Rheinmetall’s 40% Sell-Off Meets Insider Buying: The ILA Berlin Showdown and What a €73 Billion Backlog Really Means

The contradiction engulfing Rheinmetall could hardly be sharper. The Düsseldorf-based defence contractor sits on a record order book of €73 billion — roughly five times this year’s expected revenue — yet its share price has been sliced in half from the peak. At Friday’s close of €1,190, the stock is down 25.7% since the start of 2026 and has surrendered more than 40% from the all-time high of €1,995 reached just over a year ago. The monthly loss alone stands at 17%.

That gap between commercial achievement and market sentiment is the defining feature of Rheinmetall’s current predicament. And it is about to be put centre stage at the ILA Berlin air show, where the company will try to convince investors that execution can finally catch up with ambition.

Why the market turned so sour

The trouble began with first-quarter numbers that failed to live up to expectations. Rheinmetall posted revenue of €1.94 billion, an 8% year-on-year increase but roughly 15% below what analysts had pencilled in. Several major brokers promptly trimmed their price targets. The company blamed the shortfall on a timing issue: large truck handovers in Germany and the restart of production at a Spanish munitions plant were shifted into the second quarter.

Management has stood firm on the full-year forecast, still targeting revenue of €14.0 to €14.5 billion with an operating margin around 19%. Order coverage for the current year is pegged at approximately 97% of expected sales. Yet the market appears unconvinced that a pipeline of this size can translate smoothly into earnings. The central question is no longer about demand — it is about factory throughput, supply chains and hiring capacity.

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

A rare insider vote of confidence

Against that sceptical backdrop, an unusual signal emerged from within the corporate orbit. ATP Holding GmbH, an entity closely linked to the board, bought 4,000 Rheinmetall shares in early June at a price of roughly €1,250 apiece. Insider purchases are always noted, but this one carries particular weight because it happened during a phase of pronounced weakness. Market observers interpret the move as a deliberate bet that the stock’s fundamental value outweighs the current chart-driven pessimism.

That optimism has yet to be validated by technical indicators. The Relative Strength Index stands at 39.6, still shy of the oversold threshold that would typically trigger a contrarian bounce. The 50-day moving average of €1,344 is more than 11% above the current price, and the 200-day line at €1,620 is almost 27% higher — a chasm that underlines the scale of the downtrend.

ILA Berlin: a chance to reset the conversation

From 10 to 14 June, Rheinmetall will occupy 840 square metres of exhibition space at the ILA in Berlin. The event is far more than a trade fair; it is the company’s first major public stage since completing its transformation from automotive supplier into a pure defence player. The line-up of displayed technologies underscores the breadth of that pivot: the autonomous Collaborative Combat Aircraft MQ-28 Ghost Bat from Boeing, the loitering munition system FV-014 that blends surveillance with precision strike, and the joint venture Rheinmetall ICEYE Space Solutions, which recently secured a billion-euro Bundeswehr contract for space-based reconnaissance via SAR satellites.

The F-35 production facility in Weeze, built in less than eighteen months, will also feature prominently. It serves as a tangible example of the execution speed that investors now desperately want to see replicated across the rest of the portfolio. The ILA is therefore not a substitute for a quarterly report, but it offers management a rare opportunity to weave the technology story into a broader narrative of industrial credibility.

Geopolitical crosswinds

Two external forces are pulling the stock in opposite directions. On the bullish side, Europe’s rearmament momentum shows no sign of abating. SIPRI recently calculated continental military expenditure at $864 billion, the highest ever recorded for Europe. Germany alone plans defence spending of over €108 billion in 2026 and is aiming for a NATO target of 3.5% of GDP ahead of schedule. Rheinmetall is structurally aligned with that trend.

Rheinmetall at a turning point? This analysis reveals what investors need to know now.

Yet the same geopolitical currents that have lifted defence stocks over the past three years are now generating volatility. Donald Trump is pushing for a faster US withdrawal from NATO, with the Pentagon reportedly set to present concrete pullout plans as early as June. Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth continues to press Europe for far higher military outlays. Meanwhile, progress in Ukraine peace talks — Trump and President Zelenskyy recently said they were “significantly closer” to a deal — has weighed on valuations by temporarily reducing the escalation premium built into defence shares.

The next hard catalyst on the calendar is the NATO summit in Ankara on 7–8 July, which is widely expected to provide fresh direction for the sector. Until then, the ILA and a series of trading sessions will test whether the stock can stabilise above its 52-week low of roughly €1,100. A break below that level would mark a new and dangerous phase in the chart pattern.

What comes next

The true reckoning arrives on 6 August with the half-year results. By then Rheinmetall must demonstrate that the first-quarter slippage has been recovered and that the record backlog is beginning to flow through the income statement at a faster pace. The ILA can polish the story, but only the numbers can restore the market’s faith. For a stock that has lost almost half its value in less than a year, the margin for error is now razor thin.

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