The Droneshield Ltd (ASX: DRO) share price plummeted 7.5% on Wednesday. At the close of the ASX the share price changing hands for $3.85 a piece. Over the past month it's dropped a whopping 38.79%.
The company's shares rocketed in June to October, rising 415% in just four months, so sentiment has well and truely turned.
And now it's clear many investors are continuing to sell up? So what's happened?
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New update spooked investors
Yesterday, the company released an update relating to share options.
It said that almost 44.5 million performance options were vested yesterday after it had met a performance hurdle of $200 million cash receipts in a 12-month rolling period. This has triggered the vesting of over 44 million performance options and put the business on track for another record year.
DroneShield's latest announcement centres on its employee incentive scheme and is aimed at aligning the interests of staff and shareholders at a time when the business is delivering significant growth.
The next round of options will only vest if the company surpasses more ambitious sales or cash receipt targets, at $300 million, $400 million, and $500 million.
DroneShield's CEO, Oleg Vornik, said he is pleased to reach the milestone and looks forward to maximising performance for the remainder of the year and into 2026.
He added: "Performance Options align the DroneShield team and its investors, enabling DroneShield to attract the best talent and incentivise performance, whilst reducing the cash burden on the Company as it continues to rapidly grow."
The new announcement follows a mid-October market meltdown on Wall Street which spooked investors and saw many investors sell off their shares. At the time, it looked like the downturn might have been caused by investors taking their profits from the strong gains made in the past year. But continued declines have caused concern for some.
Will Doneshield shares go back up?
Analysts seem to think so, and it looks like the company is well to experience another growth phase too.
TradingView data shows that there is still a strong buy consensus for Droneshield shares, and points to a potential maximum upside of $5.30. That represents a potential 37.66% upside over the next 12 months, at the time of writing.
Following Droneshield's announcement this morning, Bell Potter wrote to investors saying that they have retained their buy rating and $5.30 price target on the company's shares. The broker said it expects 2026 to be an inflection point for the global counter-drone industry and points out that the company has a strong potential sales pipeline over the next 3-6 months as defence budgets roll over to FY 2026.
