Thursday Decaf Randomosity

• • Green Mountain Coffee ($GMCR) is down nearly 50% today as the company slashed its 2012 outlook due to sluggish sales of its single-cup Keurig brewers and portion packs. A lot of this may be competition. I don't think people have stopped drinking coffee! Maybe there is saturation in the Keurig machines.
  • In March, Starbucks ($SBUX) announced that they would be offering their own single-cup machine called the Verismo at the end of the year.
  • Wouldn’t you rather own Starbucks? Remember the concept of “Gorilla Investing” from back in the 90s? Anyway, if you’re buying the powerhouse, wouldn’t you want Starbucks? In addition to coffee on every corner, expansion in China, they’ll be offering a single-cup brewer. I bet it does really well, and I feel sorry for the competition. No positions in coffee stocks as of right now.
  • Target ($TGT) is going to stop carrying the Amazon ($AMZN) Kindle in response to Amazon’s practice of undercutting practice. Target is testing expanding their displays of Apple’s ($AAPL) products. Wal-mart ($WMT) is also testing offering Apple stores within Wal-marts.
    
  • 30-year mortgage rates are at record lows at 3.84%. The 15-year is also at an all-time low at 3.11%. But I just refinanced two months ago! I don't want to go through that again! We keep waiting for runaway inflation... And waiting... And waiting...
  • By the way, I love my Keurig machine. Make a lot of iced coffee.
  • OPEC says they’re working hard to bring down oil prices. Working through lunch. Eating lunch at their desks. Working on weekends. Staying past 5pm. Working through American Idol. "We are not happy with prices at this level because there will be destruction as far as demand is concerned," OPEC Secretary General Abdullah al-Badri told an energy conference.
    
  • The Los Angeles Times reported on California’s budget deficit and the continuing faulty projections by the state’s bean counters. For this April’s taxes, taxpayers are receiving more than $2.6B in tax refunds. Accountants had projected to pay out only $2B. That’s a 30% miss. In addition, Governor Jerry Brown was off by 20% in his income tax projections, and 10% off in corporate tax projections. That amounts to about $3B. So, it’s tough to tell how bad the state deficit really is at this point. I believe the last number I heard was $9B, but Jerry was counting on voters voting to tax themselves in November to cover much of that. Long shot, Jerry!
    
  • Angels pitcher Jered Weaver pitched a no hitter in Anaheim against the Minnesota Twins. His mom and dad were in the crowd. Did you see dad in the ninth with a big ol' beer? Lol. I watched the 8th and 9th innings on the iPad MLB app!