Trina Solar, When Losses Are Still Bad (TSL)

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By Douglas A. McIntyre Updated Published
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Chinese PV solar maker Trina Solar Limited (NYSE: TSL) reported a net EPS loss this morning of -$0.03, compared with estimates of a loss of -$0.04. Revenue of $216.3 million beat estimates of $201.31 million, but were off 25.6% sequentially and up 113.4% year-over-year.

For the first quarter, Trina expects to ship 50-55 MW of PV modules at a gross margin level of 15%-17%. That’s down sequentially from 57.59 MW in the fourth quarter of 2008, while gross margin expectations are up from 9.6% in the fourth quarter, though well below third quarter gross margins of 22.4%. The lower fourth quarter margin was off 7.9% due to a non-cash inventory provision.  Trina shares are off about 2% at $5.83, although the volume so far is thin enough that you might wonder if anyone cares.

Paul Ausick
March 3, 2009

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About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.

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