L&F slips back to No.3 on Kosdaq but institutions still sanguine on the stock

L&F, one of the hottest battery stocks in Korea, slip to the third on the Kosdaq after it outpaced Kosdaq-strong Celltrion Healthcare for a weeklong on strong earnings report.

Investors turned to sell mode to take profits from recent gains, but analysts are still optimistic about L&F’s business performance as they upgraded their price targets.

On Wednesday, L&F shares fell 5.15 percent or 13,800 won to end at 254,200 won with a market capitalization of 9.13 trillion won, lower than Celltrion Healthcare’s 9.5 trillion won. The stock lost its No. 2 title after it elbowed out Celltrion Healthcare on May 18 for the first time in terms of market cap.

L&F shares recently rallied, hitting new intraday highs of 279,000 won on Monday. L&F was the second most favored stock by foreign investors this month following Kia with a net buying of 205.7 billion won.

The company recently inked supply contracts worth 7.19 trillion won with LG Energy Solution and its subsidiary. The ROK-U.S. alliance in the semiconductor and battery industry posed more upside to the stock.

Recent gains were driven by its surprising first-quarter earnings. The company reported an operating profit of 53 billion won over sales of 553.6 billion won in the quarter, already exceeding its full-year operating profit of last year.

The robust business performance prompted to as many as 13 securities firms to raise their price targets on L&F.

Sales from Tesla will increase to 75 percent of the company’s total revenue by next year based on its expanded production capacity, and the product mix is expected to improve with growing introductions of lucrative high-nickel NCMA battery materials, said KB analyst Lee Chang-min.

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