Mackey slams my first stock investment

John Mackey, Chief Executive of Wild Foods, gets caught slamming competitor Wild Oats.

SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- The Securities and Exchange Commission has opened an informal inquiry into Whole Foods Market Inc. Chief Executive John Mackey's anonymous posts to Internet message boards, according to a report late Friday on The Wall Street Journal's Web site.
The SEC is looking into Mackey's roughly eight years of anonymous posting, which included positive remarks about his own company's health and disparaging remarks about a company Whole Foods (WFMI : Whole Foods Market Inc WFMI40.50, +1.50, +3.8%) is currently attempting to acquire, the report said.

I wouldn't care about this, except that I recently invested my IRA in stocks, and Wild Oats was one of the stocks I chose. This year we were finally forced to invest in IRAs because of our tax burden. I also finally navigated the wild world of purchasing stocks, with a little help from Banc of America. I find it funny that someone as important as John Mackey would spend time slamming his competitor on a message board, and even funnier that he now stands to be a part of that competitor. Brings to mind the old adage, "Don't burn bridges," and is one reason that, after suddenly turning in my two weeks' notice at work, I sat down with my supervisor and let her know that I liked her and was not quitting because of her for any reason. Why do I care? Because it is nice to keep those bridges in good working order. She might the one to hire me back in a few years. (For future posts: How I made less money working than I will unemployed.)