Real Goods Solar (RSOL) posted a real good quarter after the bell today, surprising Wall St by reporting a profit.  Ok, the profit was miniscule at $17k, but it was much better than the .04/share loss analysts had expected and marked the 3rd straight quarter of profitability.  Revenues matched analyst estimates of $15 million and represented a 58% improvement over the year ago quarter.  The company attributed the improved margins to better installation practices, solar module price declines and integration of acquired businesses.

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CEO John Schaeffer commented on the quarter: “We are extremely pleased with our first quarter results. Internal revenue growth was over 50% from the first quarter of 2009 and we are optimistic about both residential and commercial demand for the remainder of the year. We were very pleased to recognize a profit during the first quarter of the year, which is typically our seasonally slowest quarter.”

I’m not seeing any guidance numbers on the initial release but that should be available tomorrow during the conference call.

While RSOL is an extremely thin stock trading just 14K shares a day, it continues to look quite bullish on the daily chart.  A breakout above the April high of 3.90 with big volume would be extremely bullish.