Hot coffee. (Investments & Finance).

Torrance-based coffee distributor Farmer Brothers Co. rarely sees its stock trade more than 1,000 shares daily. Usually, price and volume spikes are tied to rare news events -- in late April, for example, its largest institutional shareholder, Franklin Resources Inc., said it was willing to sell its 9.8 percent stake in Farmer Bros. back to the company at the right price. The stock's price and volume surged.

So last week, when the stock jumped more than $22 in one day, to $343 a share on volume of 2,700 shares, at least one dissident wondered what was happening.

"I could find no reports relating to yesterday's activity," wrote Gary Lutin, who runs a forum for outside shareholders who are trying to get the company to deal more openly with its public shareholders, or alternatively buy them out and take the company private.

Through personal holdings, family trusts and the company's employee stock ownership program, Chairman Roy E. Farmer and his son, Chief Executive Roy F. Farmer, control 43 percent of Farmer Bros.' stock.

The ESOP has been a purchaser of Farmer Bros. shares in the past, and the company has said it plans to continue to purchase them.

So is the company picking up shares on the open market?

A Franklin spokesman said that the company won't "comment on market activity or rumors."