It is fair to say that Novonix Ltd (ASX: NVX) shares have had a difficult 12 months.
As you can see on the chart below, since this time last year, the battery materials technology company's shares have lost 77% of their value.
This means that if you had invested $1,000 into the company's shares a year ago, you would unfortunately only have $230 leftover today.
Clearly, Novonix shares have underperformed the market. But will that be the case again in 2023 or will things be better for investors?
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Novonix shares to rise in 2023?
Unfortunately, Novonix shares are not widely covered by brokers, so we don't have a lot of opinions on the company's outlook for the year ahead.
In fact, the only major broker covering the company is Morgans. The good news, though, is that the broker is cautiously optimistic on its outlook.
Late last year, its analysts put a speculative buy rating and $3.11 price target on the company's shares.
So, with Novonix shares currently trading at $1.89, this suggests that they could rise almost 65% over the next 12 months.
If this recommendation proves to be on the money, it would turn a $1,000 investment into $1,650 at the end of the year.
Potential catalysts
Ultimately, whether 2023 is a successful year for Novonix shares may depend on anode prices and the progress it makes on the construction of its US manufacturing facility for high-performance synthetic graphite anode materials.
The latter is scheduled is on track to begin a delivery rate of 3,000 tonnes per annum (tpa) of high-performance synthetic graphite to KORE Power in 2024.
Finally, it is worth highlighting that Morgans has a speculative rating on its shares. This means that an investment carries a lot of risk.
