The Wrap: The Marijuana Trade

This week we go the full Mary Jane on the pot stocks you’re trading, chop up the data to see which age groups are getting high on returns and dish out the cookies to this week’s best buy and sell. Don’t worry there are no joint winners this week.

So roll up your digital paper and take a deep breath, because this one is lit!

The 4(20) most active weed stocks on Stake

1. Cronos Group Inc (CRON) (-6.05% week, +164.38% year)
2. Canopy Growth Corporation (CGC) (-6.98% week, +106.74% year)
3. Tilray Inc (TRLY) (-3.26% week, +239.17% year)
4. Aurora Cannabis Inc (ACB) (+2.57% week, -18.98% year)

Going green

When we ran the data this weekend, we thought something was up. And it was. Your interest in trading cannabis stocks on Stake. Although it was popular in 2018, it’s gone to a new level in 2019.

From August to December 2018, there was a steady increase in the percentage of stock trades that were marijuana related. In August, 4.5% of all stock trades were in names such as Aurora, Canopy, Tilray and Cronos. By November and December those percentages were up to 5.52% and 5.99% respectively. It was pretty simple to see where the tall poppies are trading.

Pedalling in 2019

Fast forward to 2019 and nearly 6.7% of all stock trades this year have been in marijuana names. In the last 2 weeks, it’s closer to 10%. As a guide, over any given period, less than 3% of all trades are in big name stocks like Apple and Amazon.

Clearly there’s a lot of investors and traders hitting the Stake dispensary in search of ‘higher’ returns. With Cronos up more than 60% over the last month and GW Pharmaceuticals up more than 25% over the same period, there’s also been an increase in activity of those looking to take profits. Clearly those selling CRON (37% of all trades were sells) and Canopy (21% of trades were sells) are worried that their profits may go up in smoke….

Everybody’s doing it. And some aren’t.

When it comes to getting in on the action, it’s not overly surprising that this trade is more popular with younger investors.

Although 26–34 year olds make up the largest group of Stake customers (around 28%) they over represent when it comes to trading in pot stocks, making nearly a third of the trades in the space.

On the flip side, 50–65 year olds make around 8% of all trades on Stake, yet in the weed names its less than 5%. One can only assume its a case of wine, whiskey and Warren (Buffet) over weed.

For those following Buffett, we did some research and found that a Buffett has actually invested in the space…..Singer, Jimmy Buffett, recently invested in Surterra, a private company out of Georgia which cultivates cannabinoids and undertakes research to treat post traumatic stress disorder. I might add that his new band, the “Coral Reefers” is aptly named too.

New stock alert

A bit smaller than its peers listed here, with a market cap of $260m, Intec Pharma (NTEC) is an Israeli pharma company that develops cannabis medication as part of its product suite. NTEC is up ~38% over the last 12 months.

See all the weed stocks on Stake.

Which traders are rocking the joint?

Top buy | Cronos Group (CRON) +49.02%

This trader took it up a notch with a well timed entry into CRON, the Canadian based cannabis company and also the most active cannabis stock on Stake in 2019. Cranking after the initial purchase of $13.20 on January 17, the stock set sail shortly sending good vibes and 49% returns over the last few weeks, with its price now $19.67.

Top sell | Tilray (TLRY) -66.70%

We went back to September 2018 for this one. It’s a good reminder that markets go up, down, sideways and whatever way they like. Ultimately, we choose what section of the ride we want to be a part of.

Tilray went exponential in the first few weeks of September, moving from just above $65.20 to a high of exactly $300.00 on September 19.

This trader didn’t want to see the back end of the rollercoaster and jumped off the the day after (Sep 20), selling out at $229.11, saving them from a tough come down (currently 66.67%)….with the stock now trading at $76.30.

5 stocks rising like the number of uni students joining Australia’s Next Top Trader

1. Melinta Therapeutics Inc. (+104.01%)
2. MacroGenics Inc. (+96.33%)
3. PCM Inc. (+39.52%)
4. Snap Inc. (+29.57%)
5. Insys Therapeutics, Inc. (+28.57)

5 stocks going down like your desire to read another weed pun

1. SendGrid, Inc. (-51.6%)
2. USA Technologies, Inc. (-38.21%)
3. Sangamo Therapeutics, Inc. (-31.09%)
4. Vanda Pharmaceuticals Inc (-27.67%)
5. Opko Health, Inc. (-25.07%)

Extra reading

While doing some extra research for this week we connected with The Green Fund, an Aussie website dedicated to trading and investing in cannabis companies. You can check it out at thegreenfund.com