DroneShield Ltd (ASX: DRO) shares have been a popular option for investors in the past year or two.
During this time, the counter drone technology company's shares have generated big returns for investors.
And if you timed it perfectly, the returns would have been out of this world.
For example, two years ago you could have picked up Droneshield shares for 31 cents each.
If you had been lucky enough to then sell them at their peak of $2.72 in July last year, you would have got a return of almost 9x.
But that's the past and unless you have a time machine, those returns are gone now.
So, let's focus on the future and see what a $10,000 investment could become in one year.
$10,000 invested in Droneshield shares
At the time of writing, the Droneshield share price is trading at 84 cents.
This means that with a $10,000 investment you could pick up 11,905 Droneshield shares. What could they be worth in March 2026?
Well, the team at Bell Potter is very positive on the company and sees a lot of value in its shares at current levels.
So much so, the broker recently put a buy rating and $1.10 price target on them. If its shares were to rise to that level, your 11,905 units would have a market value of $13,094.40.
That's over $3,000 more than you started with or a return of just over 30%. Not bad!
Why is Bell Potter bullish?
Bell Potter has been impressed with the strong start to FY 2025 that Droneshield has reported. It said:
Whilst DroneShield's performance over the last 12-months did not meet expectations, the near-term outlook is considerably more positive. The value of contracts received YTD (~$47.8m) is evidence of increased levels of customer activity and DRO is well placed to meet this demand having materially increased the scale of its operations and heavily invested in its inventory levels. We retain our BUY recommendation.
Increasing hostilities globally are broadly driving a significant increase in defence budgets with aggregate military expenditure exceeding $2.4 trillion USD in 2023. Asymmetric warfare, including drones and counter-drone defence, is one of the fastest growing subsets within this growing military market – the core competency of DRO.
All in all, this could make Droneshield shares worth considering if you're looking for small cap ideas.
