It does not make any sense. Ethiopian official reached an agreement with Starbucks (SBUX) to promote the regions coffee in its stores, and support the country’s brands Sidamo, Harar and Yirgacheffe. But, the deal has no royalties, so it does not cost the coffee chain a dime.

On a less well-covered note, Starbucks management has been speaking at a William Blair investor conference and has indicated that reaching the high end of their guidance will be hard. Not what investors wanted to hear from company trading near its 52-week low.

So, Starbuck’s stock is down to a new low today, at $26.41, off 3.3%.

Maybe it was not the Ethiopians after all.

Douglas A. McIntyre can be reached at douglasamcintyre@247wallst.com. He does not own securities in companies that he writes about.