And in Whole Foods News...

Things just get curiouser and curiouser in Whole Foods' attempted acquisition of Whole Oats and the FTC's lawsuit to prevent it. The Wall Street Journal has a front-page article about posts that Whole Foods CEO John Mackey made on the Yahoo message board for Whole Foods' stock ("Whole Foods is Hot, Wild Oats a Dud -- So Said 'Rahodeb'", p. A1). This would be strange and probably unwise if he had done it under his own name, but what can you say about him doing it with a pseudonym? How about the fact that he trashed Wild Oats repeatedly and talked up Whole Foods?

In January 2005, someone using the name "Rahodeb" went online to a Yahoo stock-market forum and posted this opinion: No company would want to buy Wild Oats Markets Inc., a natural-foods grocer, at its price then of about $8 a share.

"Would Whole Foods buy OATS?" Rahodeb asked, using Wild Oats' stock symbol. "Almost surely not at current prices. What would they gain? OATS locations are too small." Rahodeb speculated that Wild Oats eventually would be sold after sliding into bankruptcy or when its stock fell below $5. A month later, Rahodeb wrote that Wild Oats management "clearly doesn't know what it is doing .... OATS has no value and no future."

This is so bizarre that I can't think of anything better to say about it than Harvey Pitt, former chairman of the SEC, did in a quote in this article:

For an executive to use a pseudonym to praise his company and stock "isn't per se unlawful, but it's dicey," said Harvey Pitt, a former Securities and Exchange Commission chairman. Told of the Mackey posts, Mr. Pitt said, "It's clear that he is trying to influence people's views and the stock price, and if anything is inaccurate or selectively disclosed he would indeed be violating the law." He added that "at a minimum, it's bizarre and ill-advised, even if it isn't illegal."