GT Solar (SOLR) has been a solar superstar over the past several months with its stock soaring from just $1.55 last November to a high of around 9 just a few days ago.  That kind of run isn’t sustainable and the stock was long overdue for a pull back.  It’s been pulling back over the past week and tomorrow morning will test the 50 day moving average around 6 after reporting earnings after the bell today that were well below analyst estimates. 

The company reported an EPS of just .08/share which is less than half of the .18/share analysts had expected and a more than 60% plunge over the year ago quarter.  Revenues missed the mark as well coming in at $138.5 vs consensus estimates of $151 million.  That’s basically flat when compared to the year ago quarter.

The future outlook isn’t any better with the company predicting FY10 sales of $450 – 500 million vs the estimates of $554 million and an EPS for the fiscal year 2010 at just .45 – 60/share which is far below the street estimate of .71.

CEO Tom Zarrella commented, “Against the backdrop of the macroeconomic downturn, we saw slower spending by customers in our PV equipment business in the second half of our fiscal year, a trend that is continuing in fiscal 2010. In our polysilicon business, we expect to ship a significant portion of our reactor-based backlog over the next few months and recognize revenue later in fiscal year 2010. We are encouraged that many of our polysilicon customers continue to execute their projects in anticipation of the promising long-term future growth of solar.”

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