This article is completely wrong. If Starbucks has hedged, they aren't "losing" money on the price of coffee going up or down; their hedge pays out inversely with the change in operating costs due to coffee price fluctuations.

Another way to illustrate this is to note that the cost part of the equation is the same regardless of what happened to coffee prices in the last year: assuming they hedged, they'd probably raise prices by the same amount had coffee been up or flat for the year, too.

Another important flaw is that costs do not determine prices in this way. See this legendary Quora thread for details: http://www.quora.com/Why-is-iced-coffee-more-expensive-than-...

Yet another problem is that even if costs did determine their pricing, Starbucks' big costs are real estate and labor. The markup on beans and hot water alone is staggeringly high.