168
In the dot-com era, companies formed and shares traded often based on the idea or concept of what the company was marketing (and the promise of financial rewards if their ideas and concepts came to full fruition). There are many stories of such companies being allegedly nothing more than a few people in a room with a computer. The legal Cannabis industry in Canada includes companies with actual high value inventory, land, equipment, capital, cash, customers, growing revenues, production licences, and so forth and yes there are likely some companies built on ideas so there just may be some weeds to pull out.
That fear of course has also been discussed many times because the unscrupulous take to social media and bullboards bashing companies while simultaneously promoting other companies – the Monty Hall Problem and other game theory at work – are they really anything more than the looters during disasters? Trusted names who are paid promoters themselves start tweeting out terms like pump and dump aimed at Canadian companies that are not their clients. And the clever amongst them are chameleon like – using name brands, creating misleading IDs and websites, copying proven strategies and metrics, using terms coined by the industry leaders such as our writers, may portray themselves as neutral experts, etc. I myself had to recently enforce my registered copyright to have an imposter ID on a social media site dealt with.
This CSA bulletin with respect to Canadian listed companies with US operations whether direct or indirect was quickly met with doom and gloom predictions and headlines by those trying to sell their wares. Did the sky fall? The Canadian MJ Index as measured by www.marijuanaindex.com was higher on October 31st than it was just prior to that bulletin’s issuance.
We published the basic tenets to investing in this industry, more than a year ago in the US edition, remain as the gold standard for you to identify those companies that you may want to invest in, avoid, do more due diligence on, or simply watchlist. I have updated those tenets because as we know this industry is constantly being Ecoformed because it truly is a vibrant ecosystem.