Biotech Values

[DewDiligence]

(MON) Politics and posturing…

http://www.minyanville.com/businessmarkets/articles/monsanto-coke-dupont-dow-syngenta-microsoft/3/15/2010/id/27292

[Shawn Hackett, president of Hackett Financial Advisors, a money-management firm with a focus on the agricultural sector] believes the antitrust investigation is more politically-driven than not—as does former American Farm Bureau President Dean Kleckner, who said the series of “agricultural workshops” hosted by the USDA and the DOJ’s Antitrust Division to “explore competition issues affecting the agricultural sector in the 21st century” that began on Friday [March 12] in Ankeny, Iowa, are “mostly for show” and are all “about politics and posturing.”

…The last time Monsanto was facing this level of turbulence was in the early 2000s, when the “Frankenfood” movement was gaining traction. Hackett says this was, in fact, the best time to have bought the stock.

“When everyone was saying ‘Don’t touch it!’ Monsanto dipped to $7. Then, five years later, it was trading at $150. I’m not saying history always repeats, but we could retest the highs again over the next couple of years.”