Robotics Boom 3 Stocks Under 20 Right Now

Robotic stocks are the hottest new investment, but some of them are priced too high. These new up-and-comers are all under $20. MarketBead's Jeffrey Neal Johnson joins us with a list of three names he's watching in robotics that are again in that penny stock territory for a couple of these names, especially towards the end of the list, which also means a little bit of volatility ahead. Jeffrey, let's talk about robotics. These have been some of our most popular videos on the channel. Investors are really interested in robotics. Why is that, and why is now the time to get invested in robotics? You know, I think that robotics really just captivate people's imagination with the things that are coming. We have electric cars coming, we have robots in your house, we have all these things coming down the line. And I think it's just another one of those at-the-edge technologies that people can't get enough of. Yeah, absolutely. And a lot of investors are always looking to get ahead of a trend. AI feels like we're at least already somewhat into that trend. This is that next phase of AI, which is taking AI, putting it into bodies or robots of some kind, and that is what's been so popular about these stocks. It still feels early for some of these names, especially the three stocks you have for us today that are all under $20. Let's start with the first stock on your list today. This is one that's only ever really made an appearance on our MarketBeat Mondays, so a few of you might have heard of it. Let's get to that first name. The first one that we're going to talk about today is Redwire. Redwire's stock symbol is RDW. You can think of Redwire kind of like your Home Depot of space. They build things like solar panels, 3D printers, robot arms, the things that you need to add to your space station to make it work. They already have contracts with NASA and ESA. They have parts and pieces on the International Space Station right now, but the big thing about them is that they recently pivoted to defense. That defense is called Edge Autonomy, which is basically like drones for the U.S. Army. They have two platforms called the Stalker and the Penguin. They have recently started selling those out to different industries as well as the military. They have about a $355 or $356 million backlog for these, and so that's actually a pretty good vision into where they're going for the future. That sounds like a lot. There's a lot this company does. Where does it all fit into the robotics story specifically? I like frontier robotics, and that's what this is. Frontier robotics is putting robots in places that you can't put humans. Space, underwater, radioactive things, that sort of stuff. Redwire, their robotics play, of course, is in space with the robotic arms and robotic solar panels and that sort of thing, but on land, their big play is their drones and the autonomous drone sector. They just recently started doing that, so it's a pivot for them, but they've already taken their two platforms and been able to get a contract from the government. The autonomous drone sector is just going to be huge in the future, and so having one that's certified with the military is probably the best place to be, and for them to pivot, because they already have a NASA contract, right, and they already have a European Space Agency contract as well, so it's just the next pivot for them would be, of course, to have, for instance, security drones flying around your location where you're sending things up into space, etc. Yeah, this is an interesting one looking at the chart, simply because we've seen defense stocks, drone stocks in the last month really see a huge increase, and yes, Redwire has gone up, but overall, this stock is still down compared to its highs that it reached earlier this year. Let's talk about what's behind all of the volatility with Redwire, and do you see it getting back to those highs anytime soon? I think they will be headed back to their highs. Their revenue growth was 50%, I think, from Q3 to Q4, or Q3 2025 versus Q3 2024. They're up like 50%, so that proves to us that the defense acquisition is working on their side, and this is one of those ones where the analysts are constantly chasing the high on the stock, so when that stock gets closer to $13, you can expect that the analysts will come in and re-rate it even higher, because this isn't really a rocket ship stock. This is more of like your steady climber stock. It just slowly climbs, and as the catalysts come in, it will continue to climb up. I think it's important to note, though, that at one point in the last year, the stock was up at $26. The high end of those consensus price targets is $22, so I think this company looks like people are still trying to see where does its value lie right now. Do you think it could see that big giant jump, which would be about doubling the stock if it reached that high again soon? Do you expect that much growth in a short period of time, or like you said, more slow and steady for this one? More slow and steady, but analysts are currently watching this stock to see if it can maintain its 50% growth rate, so it's currently growing at about 50%, and so if it can maintain that, then I think that the analysts will see that. We want to look for news from Axiom Space that they've been able to do a deal with them, or that RDW has been able to do a deal with the ESA, because RDW is a primary supplier for Axiom and the ESA, so if a new deal comes in, a new big deal comes in for them, then that would be the catalyst that we need to push the stock up. It's been struggling, but it's about them acquiring this new company and getting it up and running within their situation, so the pivot for them coming from space to drone technology is why the stock has dropped, and now that they've got a handle on that and they're able to put their new products out to the places that they already have contracts, you can expect to see the stock continue to grow, and if they can maintain that 50% growth rate that analysts are looking for, then you can expect them to come out and get re-rated again, pushing that analyst rating up even higher. So interesting. I really like the list of the three stocks you have for us today because there's such a variety. This one is more on the lower end of its 52-week high. The next stock, a huge explosive winner, and then your last stock is really in the penny stock territory, but has in the past seen much higher highs, so some interesting stories for different investors. Stick around for that last stock we have coming on the list. What all three of these names have in common is that right now they are trading well under that $20 mark. If you're looking for more of the big robotics players, maybe some more familiar names in the traditional robotics story, check out this article we have just for our YouTube viewers on marketbeat.com. It's the five robotics stocks that are catching momentum after new policy tailwinds. A lot of different decisions are impacting the robotics sector, and these are five names that you definitely want to watch. You can scan the QR code or click the link in the description to read that full story for free right now on marketbeat.com. All right, Jeffrey, let's get back to our robotics stocks under $20 list. What's that next stock you have for us? So the next stock that we have is Ondas Holdings, and I call them the SkyPlay. Their ticker symbol is O-N-D-S, and they are sort of a drone-in-the-box manufacturer. So I'm sure that you've seen videos of the box sitting out in the field. It opens up, the drone comes out, it does whatever it's supposed to do, security, spray something, you know, whatever. And then it comes back, lands, the box closes, the drone recharges, and continues going on. They're autonomous, so they're able to just be left alone. They charge themselves, and they know what their mission is. And so having that particular drone out there, they are creating these interceptor drones that fly out and capture hostile drones. And those are in huge demand in the Middle East and Ukraine. And so to have an autonomous drone in a box, basically, that you can set out in a field, and it can sit there and wait for its mission to arrive, and then open up, take off, complete its mission, come back and land, that's a huge thing. And they are in a massive expansion phase right now, so you can expect to see them growing quite a bit over the next few months and years. They have already grown so much, actually. We just talked about Ondas on the channel in a defense story on Wednesday. It was our list of 10 stocks in 10 minutes in the defense sector. And this one had the highest growth rate that I've seen for a lot of stocks, up over roughly 500% the last year. What is behind all of the growth on this one? It has had just such a giant jump this year. It's a hyper-expansion phase for them, you know, with the geopolitical tension going on all over the world, really. These interceptor drones are super important, and they're becoming increasingly more important, especially when you see adversary countries of any side sending swarms of drones one direction or the other. Having autonomous systems in place in the field, ready to go, that can just open up and take off, is a huge deal. They are definitely hyper-growing. It's insane to see how fast that they are growing. They went from barely making any money at all to making $10.1 million in a single quarter. That's like a 582% increase, which is something that you don't see very often. And when you consider the 582% increase, that's before you look at the fact that last week they were on the unusual call options list, I think twice, with like 150, 160% unusual call option spike. So not only have they had their 582% growth here recently, it looks like the smart money is watching them for more hyper-growth in the future, or they wouldn't be having so many unusual call option days. I think that's a great indicator to look at with this one too. And another thing to talk about with ONDS is it came up on Market Beat Monday. That's our live discussion where we kind of off the cuff, look at what stocks people in the chat want to talk about. And ONDS is one of the most popular ones this week because several retail investors are looking at this, just like you just said, even though it's already grown so much, there are still some people out there saying it's cheap at where it is right now because of the potential for growth. What are your thoughts on that? And what are analysts saying too? My thoughts on the growth right now, it is definitely cheap for where it can go. They have a technology called Iron Drone, which is a play on the Iron Dome, but it is a kind of a set it and forget it, autonomous defense mechanism. And when you look at how much is going on, and not just now, even if things cool down, you're still going to want to have these in place for defense. And it's not just military defense. I mean, you can put these things on top of hospitals and have them fly around doing security checks. You can put them anywhere. And so the drone security market is only going to increase and to have a technology like they have where it's autonomous and just kind of runs on its own. That's a pretty big game changer in the market. Right now, even at the consensus, it's looking like a 31% upside with a consensus price of just over $17. But on the high end, $25 estimates are coming in for this stock. Again, a stock that was quite a bit lower. Again, it's 52 week range. At one point in the last year, this stock was a 50 cent stock. So this is one of those penny stock plays that really paid off for investors who were able to get in early on this company. Such an interesting one. I'm so interested in it that I think this is the one I want to add to my Bridget Spies paper trading watch list. This name has come up too many times in the last week for me to ignore it. And so I'm going to add this onto the watch list, even though it's already seen so much growth. I think the analyst estimates and a lot of the things that you just said, that explosive revenue growth that you talked about can't be ignored. And it will be interesting to see if they can do that again in the future. So I'm going to add this one to Bridget Spies for this video. If you haven't checked out that watch list yet, scan the QR code or click the link in the description. It's just marketbeat.com slash Bridget. And it's a great way to follow along with the stocks that we talk about on our YouTube channel and to see how they move over time. I'm really excited to see how this one moves maybe by this time next year to see just how much more growth could be ahead. All right, let's get to the last one, Jeffrey. And ONDS could be potentially a good model for where maybe the stock could head in the next year. ONDS was at just around 50 cents at one point in the last year. This stock, our last stock on the list, is technically a penny stock right now. Yeah, that's correct. And you took the words right out of my mouth. I was going to say that that you had mentioned before that the ONDS was so volatile. The next stock that we're going to talk about is Nauticus Robotics, and that's their symbol is KITT, K-I-T-T. And they, just like the last one, they are currently, they're a dollar and they've been fluctuating, but they've been through the roof a couple of times. They've been as high as $8 recently. This company is doing some really cool stuff. Think basically like robots underwater. They have these autonomous robots that have arms that go underwater. They recently passed a certification to operate at like 2,300 meters. So these are deep sea robots. They replace entire fleets of crews that would have to do this manually. And so we're talking about fixing wind turbines. We're talking about fixing oil rigs. We're talking about undersea cables, that kind of stuff. These robots will be able to go down there, use their robotic arms and autonomously fix these issues for companies that do wind energy and offshore oil and that sort of thing. They're a really, really interesting play in the fully electric, untethered robot situation. Autonomous robots swim like submarines and they operate like submarines and then they take care of what they need to do and they come back. And it's just a very interesting play that I'm not really sure why the stock has been trading so low, but I feel like this could be a big one in the future. When we talk about trading so low, you have to check out the 52-week range on this one. Again, right now it's down around a dollar. It's been as low as 69 cents this year and as high as over $20. So that is a huge range, lots of volatility. And I think one of the biggest questions investors might have looking at this chart, I know it's one of the first things that popped up to me. If you look at the history of this chart, it looks a little wild. Why don't you go ahead and explain a little bit about what's behind all of the wild price action on this one? Yeah. So if you look at the stock chart, it looks like this company IPO at $3,500, but that's really not the case. That is a situation where math has created an illusion. The stock has split multiple times. In July of 24, it split 1 to 36. And I think in September, it split 1 to 9. And so together, that gives you a 360 reverse split, 1 to 360. So that takes the $10 price that it IPO'd at and pushes it up to the $3,600 mark once you include all of those splits. But I think that that 1 to 9 split might be the final split that they need to get them over the line. This company is, I hate to use the word struggling, but they're struggling right now with cash. And if they could get out from underneath this cash crunch, I think that they could really do some interesting things. Yeah, this is definitely a more risky name on the list. I think anytime you're looking at a stock that's trading around a dollar, especially one that's been at 20 before, there is some risk involved. And that's probably true of all three of the names on the list today. This is something you want to do your own research and make sure you know your risk tolerance before getting into any of these names. But this one in particular, I know you mentioned, this is kind of a make or break year for this company. Yeah, they are definitely in a make or break situation. They need to come up with some cash. Last year, they had like maybe $400,000 in revenue. They're growing. I think this past quarter, it was something like $2 million. I feel like they're going to be able to push through, especially with the September split, the September reverse split that they just had. It's important for them to make money this year. It's a make or break year for them to make money because it would only take one contract from a Shell, or a Citgo, or a Petrobras, or one of those big oil companies to come in and prove out the technology that they're building. So as soon as they get a contract where they can get some robots in the water fixing stuff, and they can actually prove that what they're doing saves the end user money, and it's safer because you're not putting people in danger, underwater, welding, and that sort of stuff. Once they can prove that, I really think that the sky is the limit for this underwater company. All right. An interesting and risky name to end this list on today, Jeffrey. Thank you for your time. If you are looking for more traditional plays in robotics, some other names that might be bigger companies and a little less risky, make sure to watch this video we had with one of our collaborating guests, FinTech Channel, as well. Make sure to check out this robotics story, too.