Replies to post #17063 on Smoky Market Foods, Inc. (fka SMKY)

[Snizzle]

SMOKY MARKET FOODS RETAIL DISTRIBUTION~

It's all pretty clear to me!

From the latest Pr.~

Upon releasing the update report, Mr. Feintech stated that "the company's management team had been focused on one specific objective since our September news release, which was to position SMKY to receive qualified financing by establishing confirmed channels for distribution and providing such warranties to investors. That objective has been achieved and continues to be enhanced while we pursue financing, and now includes some of the largest grocery chains in the country to stock SMKY product in 2013. We have a compelling story to investors who know the food business and we've mitigated risk."

Kroger food stores~

The Kroger Co. is an American retailer founded by Bernard Kroger in 1883 in Cincinnati, Ohio. It reported US$90.4 billion in sales for fiscal year 2012 (ending January 28, 2012). It is the country's largest grocery store chain,[2] its second-largest general retailer by revenue, and fourth-largest retailer in the world (surpassing Germany-based Metro AG in 2012), according to Deloitte.[3][4] As of 2010, Kroger operated, either directly or through its subsidiaries, 3,574 stores.[5]
Kroger's headquarters are in downtown Cincinnati.[6] It maintains markets in most states, from Virginia to Alaska,[7] with store formats that include supermarkets, hypermarkets, department stores, convenience stores, and mall jewelry stores. Kroger-branded grocery stores are located throughout the Midwestern and Southern United States. Kroger also is parent to several "banner" chains, such as Ralph's in California.
Kroger is a union company and its employees are represented by the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW).

[Farrago]

I'm not trying to get under your skin here, so please don't take this as such...but I just don't see continuity between your post and what I view as reality.

When a company is failing for years, losing millions and millions in debt, I don't blame the shareholders, I blame the board and execs (in pennyland, the ATM OWNERS).

Ok, I'm not debating the numbers. I'm not claiming that past performance has not been lacking. Yes, it's clear that all previous efforts to achieve financing and profitability have, from a numerical standpoint, failed. Of course that's not the shareholders fault. The responsibility for the past lack of performance clearly lies on the shoulders of Eddie. I never said it didn't, and don't think anyone here really thinks otherwise.

When someone makes a bad investment, as I clearly did with SMKY, I blame the investor. So I blame myself for being stupid enough to fall for the con.

You're obviously completely entitled to your own opinion as to the good/bad level of your decision to invest in SMKY. Yes, I do think that in the long run, if you hold (which I know you won't based on your posts), it will prove to be a profitable decision. Either way it doesn't really matter. Maybe you were "stupid"...but I still don't see a connection to what the reality is here... I mean, correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems to me that in your mind, you made a single (bad) decision to invest here and now you feel duped and think this whole company is a sham, and because of that you've sat on the sidelines warning others of the impending doom and refusing to make decisions based on larger market forces to take advantage of great opportunities to not only recoup your potential losses, but generate profit as well?

But that doesn't let Eddie and Crew off the hook for running this POS into the ground, whether you worship the guy or not.

First of all, I don't worship Eddie, nor think that responsibility for the state of the company lies with anyone else but him and his "team." ...but in a publicly traded company, let's look at where we stand.

Clearly you're basing "running this POS into the ground" on numbers from filings, debt, lack of revenues, etc. Ok, no argument there. Except this isn't a private company. There are far more (complex) reasons to invest in companies beyond simple numbers. A couple of big ones are share structure and market sentiment. Take your statement, "a company is failing for years..." Let's look at multiple years. For the trading week that ended two years ago this week, SMKY closed at .001. This week we closed at .0428. Ok, sure, in the last two years the oven was sold to a lease fund, money was spent to produce stock for WW that never sold, 5M or so shares were diluted for a couple hundred thousand dollars from Asher, or whatever that total comes to. I got it, he's running the company into the ground. No pats on the back, no awards for Eddie. But my money is tied to stock price and stock price alone. So when I see someone claim the CEO has run the company into the ground, and then I see that the stock is 4000% higher than it was two years ago, and that's after a 90% drop from last year's high...well, I don't know, maybe I'm a simpleton, but the condemnation just loses a bit of its relevance when viewed in conjunction with the PPS.

Just as I don't think that Eddie deserves an amazing round of applause based on the fact that his company is trading over 4000% higher than it was two years ago, I also don't think he deserves blame for shareholders/investors losing money. That's what my whole previous post was about.

At some point it's not about the current financial state of the company. It's not about the future possibility of success or failure. It's about investing. My first buy was 1 Dec 2010. I bought at .03. Guess what, I made a "stupid" investment, because SMKY started dropping. By sometime in January, my position was worth 1/3 of my original investment. Instead of blaming Eddie, I chose to average down...buying in the .01s and .02s. Am I a genius? No, not really, but do I understand that highly volatile, thinly traded stocks provide lots of profit potential? Yes. And that's my point. It wasn't Eddie's fault in January I was down 66% any more than it was directly his accomplishment that 8 months later I was up 2000%, etc., etc.

I understand and agree that ultimately it will be about the company long-term and whether or not they fail or succeed will eventually guide the shareprice up or down. And yes, I do believe it will be up. But even if the end result is negative, in the meantime, there have been, and will continue to be, PLENTY of investment opportunities...opportunities for people to double, triple, quadruple their money. And the responsibility for whether or not people take advantage of those opportunities to execute profitable investment trades lies not with the CEO and his crew, it lies not in the financials and millions in debt, it lies not in failed ventures with WW and other avenues. It lies solely with the individual.