Ahead of the Oct. 12 March Against Monsanto, Monsanto announced their latest acquisition on the morning of their earnings release revealing a “larger than expected” quarterly loss. Listen to the conference call and download slideshow PDF for reference. This was a slick move to paper over the loss and redirect the attention of investors, which TechCrunch described as cunning. One thing that stood out on the earnings call was there was no mention of the global Oct. 12 protests which reportedly has some hedge funds dumping the stock.