Shares of the recently discarded Jammin Java (OTC BB: JAMN.OB) popped nearly 20% higher on Friday, after inking a distribution deal with Spectrum Coffee and Water.
That's a welcome break for any investors still sticking with the stock. The shares had fallen sharply in each of the four previous trading days, and Friday's surge didn't even make up for half of the week's losses.
Jammin's drop serves as an object lesson in the perils of aggressive stock touting. A third-party shareholder that has -- or had -- been bankrolling a massive marketing campaign to promote the stock managed to send a nearly revenue-less penny stock that didn't even trade on some days in January all the way up to $6.35 four weeks ago.
But since then, Rohan Marley's coffee company has seen its stock surrender 73% of its value, despite Friday's good news.
It is hard to quantify the financial significance of the announcement. Spectrum isn't exactly a household name, and Jammin's current coffee pricing is too high to be taken seriously in the corporate coffee-service realm. Of the three brands of coffee pods that Spectrum stocks on its website, Jammin has the priciest offering.
Is anyone still using pods, anyway? Starbucks (Nasdaq: SBUX) recently inked an exclusivity deal with Green Mountain Coffee Roasters (Nasdaq: GMCR) for "super premium" K-Cups, likely shutting Jammin out of the single-serve platform of choice unless it adjusts its pricing strategy.
I warned investors about the pitfalls of chasing an actively promoted speculative stock a month ago, and came back to assess the damage after a seven-trading day stretch in which no less than 10 million Jammin shares were being exchanged in any given day.
At some point, Jammin Java may be worth buying -- but it's not there yet. We already know that the company generated less than $42,000 in sales during this year's first fiscal quarter ending in April, despite being stocked through Cooking.com and Amazon.com (Nasdaq: AMZN) in March. However, this kind of attention should drum up sales. I can only imagine that a good chunk of the speculators who ran in and out of the stock last month took the time to actually buy the java.
The circus appears to have moved on, despite Friday's bounce. With 76.7 million shares outstanding after a recent sale, Jammin finally has a lower market cap than Caribou Coffee (Nasdaq: CBOU) -- one of the stocks against which Jammin's initial subsidized hype piece compared the company. Jammin still has a ridiculous amount of volume for an upstart with minuscule revenue, but a lot of that simply comes from investors who are now realizing that they bought in late to what the promoters were selling.
As it emerges from the stock-touts' shadows, Marley's coffee company now has a tall order to fill.
Did you fall for the Jammin Java hype? What did you learn? Share your thoughts in the comment box below.
