JA Solar Profit Spurs Volume Spike

SHANGHAI (TheStreet) -- JA Solar Holdings (JASO Quote) shares rose Tuesday on above-average volume after the Chinese solar company swung to a profit in the third quarter on record shipments.

JA Solar said it earned 106.8 million renminbi ($15.65 million), or 0.66 renminibi (10 cents) per American depositary share in the quarter ended Sept. 30, compared with a year-ago loss of 142 million renminbi, or 2.47 renminbi per ADS.

Shipments totaled 177 megawatts of solar cells in the third quarter, rising 130% sequentially and 79% from a year ago. Revenue declined 37.8% from a year ago to 1.32 billion renminbi ($193.3 million), but jumped 120% from the second quarter.

On average, analysts expected JA Solar would notch a profit of 3 cents a share on revenue of $136.2 million.

Looking ahead, the company said it expects fourth-quarter shipments to be in the range of 170 MW to 200 MW, based on current customer orders. Full-year shipments should fall in the range of 448 MW to 478 MW, JA Solar said.

Shares of JA Solar were climbing by 15 cents, or 3.6%, to $4.27. Earlier in the session, the stock touched an intraday high of $4.54. More than 9.2 million shares had changed hands by 10:30 a.m. EST Tuesday, compared with the stock's 50-day average daily volume of 1.9 million, according to the Nasdaq.

JA Solar has 161.4 million shares outstanding with 11 million shares sold short as of Oct. 12, according to Yahoo! Finance. Insiders hold 25.1% of the company's shares with another 39.1% owned by institutions.

-- Written by Robert Holmes in New York.

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