FRANKFURT (dpa-AFX) - A ray of hope for SMA Solar shareholders: the inverter manufacturer continues to benefit from the boom in solar installations and raises its outlook again. As a result, the shares interrupted their recent slide and shot up. Most recently, they were up almost 14 percent at 63.55 euros. This put them at the top of the mid-cap index MDax, which fell slightly.

According to the company, business was particularly good in the Large Scale & Project Solutions segment in the third quarter. Here, SMA Solar offers complete solutions for solar power plants. And the business for medium-sized photovoltaic systems also contributed to the positive development, it said, based on initial key data for the past three months.

"SMA Solar's shares are reminiscent of the good old days, when technology and especially that with forward-looking sustainability could still trigger euphoria among investors," commented capital market strategist Jürgen Molnar from trading house Robomarkets. Once again, the manufacturer of inverters for PV systems has raised its earnings forecast. Only this time the company from Niestetal caught the market on the wrong foot, because the shares had been in free fall for months.

In the first half of the year, SMA Solar's shares had almost exclusively been on the way up. One price driver was the ongoing energy crisis caused by the Russian war of aggression on Ukraine, which led to a significant increase in demand for equipment for renewable energies. In July, the shares reached a record high of almost 113 euros.

Since then, however, the shares have been in a downward spiral. Experts at the French investment bank Exane BNP Paribas and the analyst firm Jefferies had abandoned their positive assessment of the shares, thus accelerating the price slide. The shares have halved since reaching the record high, until on Thursday the slide was stopped for the time being.

But this is not just good news for SMA Solar shareholders, Molnar continued. Most recently, he said, the industry had been almost completely written off by investors because of growing competition from China and the resulting pressure on prices. "A little more sunshine for the solar industry from news like this is very helpful there," the expert summed up.

SMA Solar is one of the world's leading manufacturers of solar inverters. According to an analysis by the consulting firm Wood Mackenzie, however, the Hessians have recently lost market share to the mostly Chinese competition, which scores with low prices.

Jefferies expert Constantin Hesse was positively surprised by the good business performance after the third target increase in the current year. However, he is skeptical about the growth target for the coming year because he expects a significant weakening of order intake in the third and fourth quarters./la/lew/zb