Michael Smurfit might be forgiven for wondering what he has done to upset the market, given the way Smurfit shares have taken a dive in the past week.
Smurfit Stone - one-third owned by the Smurfit Group and managed by former Smurfit finance director Ray Curran - has just turned in bumper results. Price increases which will flow straight through to Smurfit Stone Container Corporation's bottom line are to be imposed from next week, packaging inventories are low and US business and consumer confidence is at an all-time high.
Surely a recipe for strong demand for shares in a company that provides the packaging for the boom?
Maybe it was a case of investors simply buying ahead of Smurfit Stone's results last week and then selling once the news was official.
But the fact is that SSCC's fourth quarter earnings per share of 20 cents was well ahead of the average forecast from US analysts of 17 cents.
The positive comments from Mr Curran, the February rises and talk of increased export demand for linerboard and corrugated, in theory, should have sent the shares ahead.
Instead, we have seen SSCC fall back from a pre-results high of more than $24 (€23) to under $20 while Smurfit, which also peaked ahead of the SSCC results at €3.35 has taken a bit of a pounding and fallen back to €2.88 yesterday.
Mind you, Smurfit and SSCC have not been alone in taking a pounding in the past week as Wall Street once again focused on the tech stocks on Nasdaq and turned against the cyclicals shares like packaging companies.
Most of SSCC's competitors have also suffered heavy falls with International Paper down from almost $60 two weeks ago to less than $50, Georgia Pacific down from more than $50 to less than $41, Willamette down from $48 to $41 and Weyerhaeuser tumbling from $72 to $59.
It is difficult to rationalise that sort of share performance by Smurfit, SSCC and its peer group. Little has changed in the past two weeks to justify that sort of selling - other than a fear that the expected rise in interest rates by the Fed next week will close off some of the consumer demand in the US that fuels demand for the cardboard boxes needed to package all those purchases.
And just as Smurfit Stone reported its figures and its shares turned downwards, it emerged that Roger Stone - who was supposed to be president and chief executive of SSCC for a couple of years after the JS Corp/Stone merger but who lasted precisely three months before "retiring early" - is back in the US box business.
Stone, and son-in-law Matthew Kaplan - another early casualty of Smurfit's control of SSCC - have bought one-third of Four M Corporation, a box manufacturer with 23 converting plants and 14 box plants.
The fear among the other US producers is that Roger Stone might now upset the new-found discipline in the packaging industry where no new capacity is being brought on stream and which has been largely responsible for the shift in the supply/demand balance that has allowed three successive price increases to be imposed in the past year.
