A massive surge today for a small cap stock.
Shares of Israel-based Nano Dimension more than doubling in a single day, after the company announced the Pentagon opened the door for potential government contracts. At the same time, the 3D printer tech company also told investors it had successfully completed a deal with an un-named major U.S. defense company for the sale of its DragonFly 2020 printer.
Nano Dimenson makes high-powered digital printers that companies can use to design and print their own high tech prototypes in the form of sensors, circuit-boards, and antennae. All are necessary components for guided missiles and rockets, among other things.
CEO Amit Dror told CNBC "this is an unexpectedly big day." He was surprised by the sudden jump in the stock. At one point during trading Monday Nano Dimension, which trades under the ticker NNDM, was up 140 percent. "I didn't realize the stock would take off this much. I was hoping to see improvement in the stock but this is beyond our expectations."
Nano Dimension went public on the Nasdaq in 2016. The company does not issue guidance for Wall Street, but Dror says the company sold three of its printers, which retail for $250,000, in the first quarter of this year. He believes the second quarter will be better than that with sales moving higher in Q3 and Q4 of 2018.
It's been a bit of a wild ride for shares of Nano Dimension. Before today the stock had fallen almost 80 percent in a year. "The market was looking for significant sales" said Dror. "New technology takes time. We had great feedback but there was an expectation of revenue and we didn't meet those immediate investor expectations."
But Dror says the company is now moving in the right direction. He attributes that to the fact that the prototypes his company's printers make allow clients to do in a few hours, what it used to take weeks to do.
Dror added that companies no longer need to send those prospective prototypes out of house -- they can now make them themselves, which allows clients to make changes at any point during the process. Allowing companies to produce in house also minimizes the risk of intellectual property theft – a major concern for defense and tech companies.
Dror also says that while manufacturing prototypes is a key component to Nano Dimenson's success, the 3D printers allow companies to do full scale production if the designated components are only needed at low volume or in smaller batches.