LDK Solar Shares Continue to Slide (Update)

Updated with recent stock movements.

XINYU CITY, China (TheStreet) -- There's no way to sugar coat this one. Another Chinese solar company bit the dust in the second quarter, this time due to a bigger-than-expected inventory write-down.

And investors are continuing to make LDK Solar(LDK) pay on Friday, sending shares down to $9.03 in morning trading, a drop of $2.20 from its Wednesday closing price of $11.23.

Wednesday, after the market close, LDK Solar reported a net loss of $216.9 million, or $2.03 per ADS, in the second quarter.

Results were impacted by what is now a somewhat familiar refrain in the solar industry: the plummeting market value for solar wafers in recent months forced LDK Solar to write-down $175.8 million in inventory, though there are signs that sector-wide demand has picked up of late.

That was off company projections in July when the solar concern said it expected a write-down between $150 million to $160 million. LDK Solar also included a $16.7 million loss on firm purchase commitments of polysilicon materials.

For a comparison, the company posted $149.5 million profit in the year-earlier quarter, or $1.29 per ADS.

Gross margins, which stood at 25.4% a year ago and came to 1.7% during the first quarter, fell through the floor this quarter in coming to negative 90%.

Revenues also fell in kind by 48% from the year-earlier period, landing at $228.3 million. Still, a 21% jump in wafer shipments remained a tiny bright spot.

A group of analysts polled by Thomson Reuters expected LDK Solar to lose 91 cents on $236.1 million in revenue.