It’s true that speculative stocks are investors’ and speculators’ favorite because of their high-risk and high-reward characteristics. Fuel cell stocks are a perfect illustration of speculative stocks, as their future revenue growth is still precarious but they tend to enjoy transitory highs on big orders.

Leading fuel cell developer, Plug Power Inc. PLUG enjoyed an upswing of as much as 14.8% on Monday to close at $2.17 per share on conjectures that big orders could be on the way from Atlanta, GA-based home improvement retailer The Home Depot, Inc. HD. This breaks the recent trend of Plug Power, as the stock has been trading below the $2 mark since Aug 21, 2015.

On Sep 18, Plug Power announced that its CEO Andy Marsh will be present at the inauguration ceremony of The Home Depot’s distribution center in Ohio. This fuel cell maker has deployed 172 Plug Power Gen-Drive fuel cells for the center's forklift trucks.

Now the speculations are afloat that Andy Marsh may have been present at the ceremony to further talks of supplying additional GenDrive fuel cells to Home Depot’s other distribution facilities. If this be true, it would draw huge revenues for Plug Power.

Past Gains on Wal-Mart Orders

Plug Power or for that matter any other fuel cell stock has witnessed upside in its traded share price after clinching a big order.

In the past, Plug Power’s shares appreciated every time it announced a deal with Wal-Mart Stores Inc. WMT to supply GenDrive fuel cell units to the latter’s distribution center.

Following the Feb 2014 announcement that Plug Power will supply 1,738 GenDrive fuel cell units to Wal-Mart’s six North America distribution centers over the next two years, its shares catapulted 133.8% till almost mid March.

The most recent order from Wal-Mart came in Jun 2015. It entailed the supply of 124 GenDrive fuel cells for Wal-Mart Canada’s new High Velocity Distribution Center building. This announcement too had Plug Power’s shares go up by 5.2% in the next two trading sessions.

Demand for GenDrive-Powered Forklifts

Hydrogen fuel cell batteries have become a preferred choice for many retailers to power their forklift truck fleets over industrial lead-acid batteries. Hydrogen fuel cells provide consistent power to lift trucks, eliminating the need to change and charge batteries. In addition, fuel cells lower the carbon footprint of the company as it emits only heat and water as byproducts.

Home Depot said that its application of Plug Power's hydrogen fuel cells will prevent more than 800 tons of annual carbon dioxide emissions, which could add up to 9,000 tons of emissions over the life of the project. This is almost equal to eliminating more than 1,800 cars from the road.

To date, Plug Power has put to use more than 8,500 GenDrive fuel cells and has constructed more than 15 GenFuel hydrogen fueling infrastructure.

Zacks Rank

Plug Power currently has a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). Energous Corporation WATT is a better-ranked stock in the same industry carrying a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy).

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