What Happened?
Shares of fuel cell technology Plug Power (NASDAQ:PLUG) jumped 39.2% in the morning session after the company locked in a new loan of up to $525 million, boosting its cash pile and providing more headroom to support operations and future growth plans. It also shared strong early sales for the first quarter of 2025, beating Wall Street's estimates. Q1 2025 revenue guidance was estimated at around $130 million to $134 million.
Looking ahead, PLUG forecasted second-quarter 2025 revenue between $140 million and $180 million, aligning closely with analyst consensus and reinforcing confidence in its near-term outlook.
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What The Market Is Telling Us
Plug Power’s shares are extremely volatile and have had 89 moves greater than 5% over the last year. But moves this big are rare even for Plug Power and indicate this news significantly impacted the market’s perception of the business.
The previous big move we wrote about was 12 days ago when the stock dropped 8.9% on the news that Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell signaled a cautious stance on future monetary policy decisions during a speech in Chicago, emphasizing that trade tariffs could add upward pressure to inflation in the short term and complicate the Fed's efforts to stabilize the economy. He warned that such trade measures are "likely to move us further away from our goals," referring to the Fed's dual mandate of price stability and maximum employment.
The comments did little to improve sentiment, as major indices were already in the negative territory in the morning session after Nvidia announced it might be unable to sell some high-end chips (including the H20 chips) to China due to export controls and requirements from the Trump administration. As a result, the company planned to take a $5.5 billion charge due to inventory writedowns and canceled sales.
Adding to the sector's pressure, chip tool maker ASML posted weak bookings (a key demand indicator) which fell below Wall Street's expectations, noting that tariffs had made the industry's outlook more uncertain. Taken together, these updates likely fueled investor anxiety, amplifying concerns about global trade tensions, tech sector vulnerability, and the Fed's limited room to maneuver in an increasingly uncertain macro environment.
Plug Power is down 56% since the beginning of the year, and at $1.03 per share, it is trading 70.3% below its 52-week high of $3.45 from June 2024. Investors who bought $1,000 worth of Plug Power’s shares 5 years ago would now be looking at an investment worth $230.86.
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