Agree with your sentiments. Have started building shares at current levels. This is normally the best time to buy such stocks as people sell at the end of the financial year for tax losses, compounded by shorters hovering around for a short time.
While I believe it is important the CEO should be honest and upfront with all stakeholders, inclusive of shareholders, these mid-caps can take a couple of years to turn around. Need to be patient, however only time will tell, particularly August 2012.
Current CEO and Chairman should come out and commit to not reducing goodwill or issuing further shares, before COF turns around financially.
Previous management has set doubt into the current market place as they did not report correctly (jailable offence and wonder why there was no court action/jailings). As in Hasties (HST) case, the Accountant in question was doing it for the good of the company, not themselves. This is not acceptable as it loses inverstors money and they should be held to account for losing this capital value.
Best of Luck Lost
COF Price at posting:
33.0¢ Sentiment: Buy Disclosure: Held