Poor Farmer

By Steve Eder The Wall Street Journal November 15, 2011 In the months before hedge fund manager David Einhorn took a bat to Green Mountain Coffee Roasters, high-profile investors, including some prominent hedge fund managers, were busy locking in profits and trading in and out of the then high-flying stock. Chief among them was Steven Cohen’s SAC Capital. SAC sold off about 400,000 shares of Green Mountain during the third quarter, slashing its holdings by 42%, according to a regulatory filing on Monday. Cohen has reduced its shares over the past two quarters, ending the first quarter with 1.8 million shares, before reducing the total to 1 million at end of the second quarter, and 630,000 at close of the third quarter. Green Mountain was among the best performing stocks of the year through the first three quarters, with its shares more than doubling. But on Oct. 17, Einhorn, famous for his clash with Lehman Brothers before its collapse, took the stage at the Value...

Starbucks says higher drink prices are due to higher costs of doing business. By   Melissa Allison The Seattle Times Starbucks raised prices Tuesday on some drinks and says it lowered prices on others, in four regions including the Pacific Northwest. "As part of our regular review of pricing, some prices went up and some went down," said spokesman Alan Hilowitz. The changes are a result of "business conditions, commodities costs, occupancy costs, competitive reasons and geography," he said. It is unrelated to Starbucks deciding last week to end a $1.50 fee for whole-bean coffee purchases under a pound, the result of a consumer-rights investigation in Massachusetts. People have been talking in email and on the website www.StarbucksGossip.com   about Tuesday's increases — which appear to be in the 10- to 20-cent range, but not any decreases. Hilowitz did not have examples of decreases, but said the price of Starbucks' most popular d...