I did a pea splat when I read it!!
Peapod gets pounded
The weekend couldn't get here fast enough for Peapod shareholders. All the excitement surrounding Thursday's 50 percent pop came crashing down Friday morning as the online grocer's stock hit the skids in a big way. While Peapod's (PPOD: news, msgs) main competitor, WebVan (WBVN: news, msgs), enjoyed a 65 percent surge in its first trading day, patience was wearing thin on the PPOD boards.
Yahoo, home to many an outspoken bear, lived up to its reputation as FiveCirclingCowz posted, "These online grocery shams are going the way of milk delivered to your front door: I've never seen such a lousy business idea. Grocery stores sell at a miniscule margin, then add the expense of home delivery, etc.- what a waste!"
MvicTrdr painted an equally bleak picture: "Remember earnings. Much wider loss on decelerating, but still rising, revenues and decelerating, but still rising, margins. Not a pretty picture, and now two more well funded competitors WebVan and FoodVision.com to contend with. As far as their new service PPOD Packages, I looked at their prices, and they are almost all higher than other Net delivery services, and about 20-50 percent above your local Wal-Mart. Until that changes PPOD and others of its ilk are a no-brainer short."
And the final dagger came from Anthony on Silicon Investor: "Booger smeared and zit covered teens delivering 7-11 food right to your door? Wow, what a great deal."
The bullish rally cries that crammed the boards on Thursday were a rarity on Friday -- a 22 percent haircut can really silence a crowd. What a difference a day makes. Rest assured, PPOD longs, if and when your stock gets back on track, the bulls will, once again, proudly roam the message boards. |
