The price of SMA Solar, leading manufacturer of inverters for the photovoltaic industry, dropped by up to 8.4 percent on Wednesday after competitor SolarEdge released a disappointing revenue forecast. Shares of SMA Solar closed with a loss of about 6.90 percent at 48.46 euros. Securities of SolarEdge were also affected, plummeting by 12.06 percent to 74.13 US dollars in US trading on NASDAQ.

Both companies are specialists in inverters that convert direct current into alternating current. SolarEdge's forecast for the current first quarter is between 175 to 215 million US dollars, which is up to a 50 percent miss of market expectations. This disappointment led to a sharp decline in the share price and a general disappointment in the market.

Investor Disappointment Intensified by the Fact That There Were Positive Developments in the Specialty Sector Recently. For example, two weeks ago, the U.S. inverter manufacturer Enphase also released a disappointing sales forecast for the first quarter, but offset this with a strong margin in the last quarter of 2023. Following this, Enphase shares rose by 17 percent, also affecting the price of SMA Solar.

The coming weeks could be decisive for SMA Solar, as preliminary, yet unaudited, financial figures for 2023 and a forecast for 2024 will be released on February 29. Analyst Mengxian Sun from Deutsche Bank expects that SMA has performed better compared to its competitors. For this reason, he recently issued a short-term tactical buy recommendation for the stocks but advises to hold in the long term. Hence, the presentation of the financial figures is eagerly anticipated.