Why Ondas Stock Popped Today

Ondas (NASDAQ: ONDS) stock, a small defense contractor specializing in the manufacture of military air and ground drones, and also counter-drone (counter-UAS or CUAS) technology, soared 10.4% through 11:55 a.m. ET Wednesday.

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Citing accelerating demand "across its autonomous defense and security platform," Ondas boasted today that it has secured $70 million worth of new orders over the past four weeks, for "unmanned ground systems, border security and protection technologies, counter-unmanned aircraft systems ("C-UAS"), intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance ("ISR") systems, and autonomous precision-strike capabilities."

Translated from Pentagon-ese, that means Ondas is selling ground robots, attack drones, surveillance equipment, and drone defense systems primarily.

Not all the orders are new. Ondas noted that it rolled a recently announced $6.9 million order for Ondas' C-UAS systems to Australia into the $70 million total. Still, it sounds like Ondas is having a pretty successful month of July.

To put these $70 million in context, in all of Q2 2025 last year, Ondas booked a total of $6.3 million in sales. The orders just announced amount to 10x the volume of sales from a year ago -- with orders booked in just one-third of one quarter's time.

That's fast growth -- but do beware that growth at Ondas could be lumpy.

According to analysts who follow the stock, 2026 will probably be the first year Ondas books a GAAP profit, after a decade of losing money. That said, forecasts for next year see Ondas back in the red -- and losing money again in 2028.

Free cash flow at Ondas remains negative and is forecast to remain so in 2027 as well. It probably won't be till 2029 that Ondas is both profitable and generating consistent cash. Caveat investor.

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Rich Smith has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Ondas. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

Why Ondas Stock Popped Today was originally published by The Motley Fool