Every quarter for about the past year or more, traders have high expectations and each quarter, MEMC Electronic Materials (WFR) disappoints.   They’ve done it again after the bell today.  While the company did post non GAAP revenues a bit higher than analyst expectations at $551 million, they missed the EPS consensus estimate of .13/share by posting .10/share.

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“Our third quarter results extended our recent trend of steady improvement,” said Ahmad Chatila, MEMC’s Chief Executive Officer. “While our end markets are dynamic, we continue to improve our execution, while continuing with strategic initiatives that will catalyze our growth in 2011 and beyond.”

It wasn’t an awful quarter from WFR by any stretch.  They posted decent growth on a sequential and quarter over quarter basis, but certainly traders were expecting much more and are probably spooked by the fact that the company isn’t issuing full year guidance due to “the complexity and uncertainty surrounding the timing of GAAP profit recognition related to the Rovigo sale and other SunEdison direct sale project transactions.”  However, the company is saying that they expect strong revenue performance and positive free cash flow in Q4.

Looks to me like a bit of an overreaction after hours with the stock down more than 10%, but I thought the same thing about FSLR and it wasn’t able to find relief after hours so perhaps weakness will remain in WFR as well.  There is important support in the 11.75-12 range for WFR.  Should it close below that level tomorrow, it starts looking considerably more bearish in the shorter term.