Carbon fiber materials specialist Zoltek
The Street had expected a $0.02 net loss per share on about $43 million in sales, reflecting 28% higher revenue than the year-ago period. That sounds like a low hurdle to clear when you consider that the company serves the red-hot green energy market with materials for wind turbines, but that's not how it turned out at all. Instead, sales actually fell by 8% to $31 million, though the net loss ended up smaller than expected at just $0.01 per share.
Management pointed an accusing finger at largest customer Vestas Wind Systems (OTC BB: VWDRY.PK), which closed down several turbine manufacturing plants in Europe during the quarter in order to shift manufacturing lines into Asia and the United States.
Vestas stands for roughly half of Zoltek's sales, so any change in that customer's order patterns will have serious consequences for Zoltek. Since the turbine wrangler is simply moving from one geography to a couple of others, this impact should be short-lived. However, these shifts hurt in the near term, as any investor in solid-state drive designer STEC
At the end of the day, Zoltek is a small company with a volatile stock. Larger rival Hexcel