(new: share price, expert and details)

FRANKFURT (dpa-AFX) - Shares of SFC Energy reacted to the fuel cell supplier's improved business outlook with significant gains on Tuesday. In early trading, they surged by up to 9.5 percent to their highest level in two months. After that, however, the gains melted away somewhat, with the shares most recently trading up 4.8 percent at 23.73 euros.

In the process, the share price also crossed the 21-, 50-, 100- and 200-day lines, which are considered short- to longer-term trend indicators and run close to each other. However, at around minus 7 percent, the stock's performance for the current year is still below average compared to the SDax, which has gained around 9 percent so far.

SFC is now targeting the upper half of each of the known ranges for sales and operating profit in 2023. This was justified by a successful second quarter, which was characterized by influences such as better parts availability or weaker cost increases.

Warburg Research analyst Malte Schaumann spoke of a strong set of figures. This underlines that the company is on track to reach or exceed the upper end of its annual targets. A further increase in the targets for 2023 could be possible at a later date after the strong first half. There is likely to be new information on the medium-term outlook at the upcoming investor day./edh/tih/ajx/jha/