Friday, December 02, 2011

Stevia (STEV) Sweetner Does Not Deliver Sweet Financials

Here's a more recent pitch from my bursting mailbag of touts and teasers.  Shawn Ambrosino's M3 Profit Accelerator sent me an "Urgent Buy Alert" for a company called Stevia Corp (STEV).  This wasn't just any old buy alert, but apparently a very urgent one indeed.  Let's see if the urgency is justified.

Stevia makes artificial sweeteners.  How nice of them.  There's a YouTube video of a news report on the sweetener's FDA approval process.  I'm less interested in the science behind this new substance than this particular company's approach to making money off the stuff. 

Here we go again with the fundamentals.  Yahoo Finance shows us the reality behind the touting.  Three straight years of negative income, retained earnings, and free cash flow.  Need I say more?  I will add that the video mentioned competing sweeteners from large players like Cargill.  There is no reason for Coca-Cola, Pepsi, or other soft drink makers to source their sweeteners from a tiny company like Stevia Corp. when they can be assured of a much larger supply from Cargill et al. 

There may be some stevia (small "s" for the plant) sweeteners in my soft drinks but there won't be any STEV in my portfolio.  They just haven't made any money. 

Full disclosure:  No position in any company mentioned, especially STEV.