FWIW--
I know I probably shouldn't be doing this, but here goes...
Everyone's entitled to their opinion...who am I to say that someone's right or wrong, but I found one of the previous posts that cited "management's incompetence" and that "CF's PR firm should be fired" to be somewhat, I don't know, shortsighted, narrow in its scope, unfair, unjustified...
Listen -- it takes an enormous amount of hard work to build a company, especially one as complicated as CF (look at Brooks' previous list of all the wannabe's that failed miserably).
Not to discount the value of fancy technical analysis (one day I'll hopefully understand what the heck a hyperbolic-Bollinger-geometric advancing-declining stochiastically oscillating candlestick is, but that's for another post), but the recent decline, in my humble, over-simplistic opinion, could have been precisely predicted by the following, well-established patented Zuma technical measure:
...this is what stocks DO, fer cryin' out loud...They go up, and they come back down...Then, if all is well with the world, they go up again (hopefully, much more the next time around). Then, "rinse and repeat" until you're bloody, stinkin' rich... (come on, Pete, all I want one of those big boats, just like down there in Key Largo. Or how 'bout a golf cart with training wheels <big G>...)
Companies that do not yet have established track records will trade in a fairly wide band around whatever their "true values" are, as ANAL-ysts try to determine which cockamamie "metric" (GOD, I HATE that term), to use until the company turns a profit.
CF ran up from about 25 to about 42 in 11 friggin' trading days, fer cryin' out loud (that's 17 points, or 68%) -- I'm really doubtful that "losing Canada" (damn, and I do like their beer) is the cause for the meltdown.
Let's face it, if the supposed "professionals" who accounted for all the buy volume neglected to do a SHRED of due diligence, and were scared away by today's big press release, we got bigger problems than this decline (if I may take the liberty of paraphrasing):
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...MicroCitiSoft today announced that, "We've agreed to agree to agree to talk (EXCLUSIVELY, mind you, so don't even THINK of tryin' anything, Petey Kight, or we'll steal your milk money) to a couple of companies about maybe, possibly, pretty-please signing up 5 or 10 employees to test our half-baked, "present anything, but pay only OUR clients", no customer service, Windows NT-only EBBP software."
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My simple take -- some fund or other institution loaded up in the teens, and took their profit today. 'nuff said. While I can't STAND most analyst-types, I would seriously discount the more sinister theory that right after the Street published $40 and $50 price targets, three weeks later they subscribe to the notion that the profit-taking "was something deeper and more fundamental...Wall Street's distrust of the management..."
Anyway, I'm basically joking around with my comments (no, I'm not looking to provoke some bizarre, typographical melee, here). Just that this company is a bit of a different animal -- one that is pretty damn good, IMHO, of meeting the vast majority of its controllable deadlines and goals, and not having the stock price the primary concern (a lesson that was no doubt learned the hard way last August).
On top of that, a bunch of folks around here have had the unique opportunity to meet with and question the top dogs at CF, and (if I can be bold and speak for others on the thread), have in fact found them to be very responsive and candid in trying to balance out what they think is best to ensure the LONG term success of the company against our perhaps neverending frenzy for ever-increasing stock prices.
If anyone in this stock is looking for AOL, Yahoo, Amazon, etc., IMO they will be sorely disappointed. Again, this is a different animal. In my (very humble but perhaps jaded) opinion, look at the earliest days of ATM machines. How about Automatic Data Processing (AUD) -- how much investment in infrastructure and time do you think it took to convince companies to turn over their sacred cow - payroll!
All I'm saying (in a rather long, drawn out post, unfortunately), is criticize all ya want, but at least roll back the thread a couple 'a thousand posts and read about this company's accomplishments, and do a bit more DD into the carcasses left from all the companies who tried this gig and failed...
If you're a marketing or (the dreaded) "content" company, in some ways it's MUCH easier. Many, many fundamental things can go wrong with your products -- so long as you market big and wide, you can pretty much fool the public for a long time, and hope to get your sh*t together before you kick the bucket...
HOWEVER:
it's a whole 'nother animal if you're gonna be the trusted party to move Zuma's little $29.99 payment from his bank account to his cable company on time and with no complaints...
Anyway -- there, I've gotten it all off my chest. Now everyone have fun and don't take yourselves too seriously...
Zuma_2000............oh, ok --<g>
RK |
