Reuters alone on Foundation Coal’s production forecast; shares slide 30 pct

Reuters was alone on Oct. 22 in reporting that labor shortages at Foundation Coal’s Appalachian mines had intensified and that the coal producer was cutting its production outlook for 2009, sending shares to an all-time low. Shares of the company, which were down more than 15 percent on the wider-than-expected quarterly loss, started trading down more than 22 percent after Reuters reporter Antonita Madonna Devotta broke the news from the company’s conference call. Later in the day, Foundation shares plunged further to be down 30 percent at an all-time low. The production cut led at least three brokerages to cut their price target on the coal company. Bloomberg and Dow Jones did not carry the news.