The clock is ticking for LPKF Laser. Management had promised initial series orders for its flagship LIDE glass-processing technology by the end of the second quarter — and that deadline falls on Tuesday, June 30. With no official confirmation yet, the shares have taken a 25% hit since Monday, dragging them to €21.50, down 4.87% on the day. That puts the stock 29% below its 52-week high of €30.20, set just four trading sessions ago.
The sell-off underscores the gulf between market expectations and operating reality. LPKF’s first-quarter revenue slumped to €17.1 million from €25.3 million a year earlier, while EBIT sank to minus €6.9 million. The weak solar business is the main culprit, and management has responded with a cost-cutting program dubbed “North Star” to shore up the electronics division’s margins. Yet there is a clear bright spot: order intake jumped to €24.1 million, pushing the book-to-bill ratio to 1.4. That means orders are outpacing deliveries, a sign that demand for the company’s laser systems is strengthening — even if revenues have not yet caught up.
All eyes remain fixed on LIDE, the glass-substrate technology that LPKF is pitching to chipmakers for advanced packaging in AI and high-performance computing. CEO Klaus Fiedler had flagged first series orders for the second quarter, and the market has been pricing in a transformative win. The stock has still gained about 257% since the start of the year, even after the recent plunge, and earlier this month it had surged as much as 380% from the January level. That kind of move has lifted the stock’s annualized 30-day volatility to 135%, a level that screams speculative froth.
Should investors sell immediately? Or is it worth buying LPKF Laser?
The technical picture is now testing the bulls’ nerve. The 50-day moving average at €21.89 is within striking distance and is viewed as the first line of support. The relative strength index has fallen to 46, a neutral reading that suggests the stock is no longer overbought — but the violent swings could continue. LPKF’s return to the SDAX on June 22 did provide a brief boost from index-fund inflows, but that buying was not enough to stem the current rout.
If no LIDE order materializes by June 30, the selling pressure is likely to intensify. The next hard data point comes on July 23, when LPKF publishes its full half-year report. That will be the moment investors learn whether the lofty expectations have any concrete backing — and whether the recent order pipeline actually converts into revenue growth. For a stock with this much volatility and this much hype, the margin for error is razor thin.
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