It sounds like dead money for at least a quarter.
First up, from Barron's, October 30:
First Solar Stock Plunges 8%. Here’s Why.
First Solar is the only U.S.-based large scale solar panel maker and has benefited hugely from tax credits from the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA)
First Solar stock fell sharply early Wednesday, a drop that analysts attribute to various factors apparent in its latest earnings report released Tuesday.
First Solar is the only U.S.-based large scale solar panel maker and has benefited hugely from tax credits from the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) from 2022 aimed at onshoring clean energy production. However, it was largely due to its international business that the panel maker posted an earnings miss on both top and bottom lines after markets had closed Tuesday.
Shares were down 8.4% to $183.00 in premarket trading Wednesday.
The company’s bookings in the quarter have slowed down, reflecting a selective approach against an increasingly challenging industry backdrop and resulting inventory build up, KeyBanc analyst Sophie Karp said. “With elections a week away adding policy uncertainty to the already muddied solar landscape, we reiterate Sector Weight rating at this juncture,” Karp wrote....
....MORE
And from Motley Fool Transcribing, October 29:
FSLR earnings call for the period ending September 30, 2024.
Contents:
- Prepared Remarks
- Questions and Answers
- Call Participants
Prepared Remarks:
Operator
Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to First Solar's third quarter 2024 earnings call. This call is being webcast live on the investors section of First Solar's website at investor.firstsolar.com. [Operator instructions] As a reminder, today's call is being recorded. I would now like to turn the call over to First Solar investor relations.
You may begin.
Unknown speaker -- --
Good afternoon, and thank you for joining us. Today, the company issued a press release announcing its third quarter 2024 financial results. A copy of the press release and associated presentation are available on First Solar's website at investor.firstsolar.com. With us today are: Mark Widmar, chief executive officer; and Alex Bradley, chief financial officer.
Mark will provide a business and technology update, Alex will discuss our bookings, pipeline, quarterly financial results and provide updated guidance. Following the remarks, we will open the call to questions. Please note, this call will include forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from management's current expectations. We encourage you to review the safe harbor statements contained in today's press release and presentation for a more complete description.
It is now my pleasure to introduce Mark Widmar, chief executive officer.
Mark R. Widmar -- Chief Executive Officer and Director
Good afternoon, and thank you for joining us today. As we approach the end of 2024, we remain pleased with the progress made across our business, navigating against the backdrop of industry volatility and political uncertainty, with a continuous focus on balancing growth, profitability and liquidity. As noted at our analyst day in late 2023, in our previous earnings call, our story is about the value of long-term strategic decision-making, underpinned by differentiated technology and business model, which endeavors to drive value creation for our shareholders and partners. We expect that this disciplined long-term approach will allow us to work through the outcomes of the upcoming U.S. elections as well as continued volatility across the solar manufacturing industry. Beginning on Slide 3, I will share some key highlights from the third quarter. From a commercial perspective, we continued our highly selected approach to contracting with a net 0.4 gigawatts of new bookings since our last earnings call. This brings our year-to-date net bookings to 4 gigawatts and our total contracted backlog to 73.3 gigawatts, with orders stretching through 2030.
From a manufacturing perspective, while we're pleased with record production of 3.8 gigawatts in the quarter, our financial results were impacted by a product warranty charge of $50 million due to manufacturing issues, which we have identified and taken actions to address, related to the initial production of our Series 6 -- Series 7, excuse me, product, primarily attributed to variability in the effectiveness of the glass cleaning process at the beginning of our production line and an error in our process of predicting the engineering performance margin. We inaugurated our new $1.1 billion Alabama facility, which when, fully scaled, adds 3.5 gigawatts of vertically integrated nameplate solar manufacturing capacity. The start of commercial operation at the Alabama facility, along with our under construction Louisiana facility, which remains on track to begin operations in the second half of 2025, keeps us on course to achieve our projection of over 14 gigawatts of annual U.S. nameplate capacity and over 25 gigawatts of global nameplate capacity by 2026.
This growth is expected to support an estimated 30,000 direct, indirect and induced jobs in the U.S. alone, representing $2.8 billion in annual labor income, demonstrating the significant contribution to our nation's economic growth that high-value solar manufacturing can provide. Turning to technology. As planned, we are launching CuRe production at our lead line in Ohio in Q4 of this year.
We intend to launch its production in a phased approach, initially producing and selling approximately 0.4 gigawatts of CuRe product through Q1 2025. Upon successful field performance validation following the deployment of this volume of sold CuRe product, we intend to permanently convert the Ohio lead line to CuRe in Q4 2025, as well as replicate CuRe across the fleet, beginning that schedule with our Vietnam and third Ohio facilities in time to start capturing upside from our contractual revenue adjusters. In addition, at our new perovskite development line in Perrysburg, this quarter will be the first time we'll be able to run technology samples through an automated process that simulates in-line manufacturing conditions as we accelerate our efforts to develop the next breakthrough in thin film photovoltaic technology. With regard to intellectual property, we have recently sent notification letters to Tier 1 solar manufacturers that we believe are infringing on First Solar's TOPCon patent portfolio, which I'll discuss in more detail later in the call.
While Alex will provide a comprehensive overview of the third quarter 2024 financial results, I would like to highlight our third quarter earnings per share of $2.91, which includes the $50 million product warranty charge referenced earlier. Finally, our leadership in thin film technology and track record of investing in innovation led to First Solar being recognized by MIT Technology Reviews annual list of climate tech companies to watch, the only solar technology and manufacturing company to be included in this year's list. Furthermore, we were also proud to make our debut as Times Magazine's World's best companies in 2024 list. Moving to Slide 4....
....MUCH MORE, including trouble and opportunity in India:
...What about ASPs for our 0.8 gigawatts of gross bookings since the prior earnings call? This includes approximately 180 megawatts of domestic India shipments at an ASP of approximately $0.19 per watt. Given the India market price environment, I'll further discuss our strategy as it relates to the sales of our India produced products shortly....Previously - Earnings: "First Solar Stumbles in Third Quarter, Lowers Outlook" (FSLR)
