Top Marijuana Stocks Continue to Surprise Investors

The cannabis market has been full of a large amount of surprise over the course of the past several months to years. With so many new companies coming in and innovating the space, it seems as though cannabis is here for the long haul. Many of the stocks in the market have begun to move into the stratosphere of the cannabis space, and with new partnerships, things only appear to continue growing.

The three leaders in the cannabis industry as of right now, Canopy Growth (NYSE:CGC), Cronos Group (NASDAQ:CRON) and Tilray (NASDAQ:TLRY), have all been producing massive quantities of the substance for sale in the newly legal market domestically in Canada. Some estimates have shown that the total Canadian cannabis market is likely to be worth as much as $5.4 billion by the year 2022, which means that there is a large amount of potential still left to be gained throughout the space. These three companies have also been working to do something that many others have not, which is getting involved in the global market. The German industry on cannabis represents the largest amount of opportunity throughout the whole of the space, and could be worth more than $1.5 billion by the year 2022. Germany however is not the only place to be watched, as more and more countries around the world continue to present new opportunities to the cannabis market overall.

The biggest amount of potential that these companies have not yet or been unable to tap into has been that of the U.S. market. Given the legal issues surrounding the U.S. among other factors, it has been difficult to complete rapid expansion projects into the U.S., but things to do appear to be changing into the future. The companies all however have been able to be listed on U.S. exchanges which has meant a great deal of exposure and new investments into a market they otherwise would not have access to. The listing of the Cronos Group on the NASDAQ and Canopy Growth on the NYSE, have both helped to bring some of the largest cannabis companies into America. Both of these companies however also have decided to keep their listings on the Canadian TSX exchange, which prohibits them from having large operations in the U.S. This happens to be one of the largest tradeoffs for these companies, as they could potentially lose their listing on the TSX if they choose to grow their operations in their southern neighbor.

The marijuana industry has been extremely complicated for some time now as the legal measures are difficult to determine. The company MedMen Enterprises, a U.S. based business has been unable to list on any U.S. exchanges due to the fact that it is technically operating illegally, but the companies listed prior are able to due to their foreign operation status.

The issue here remains the legislation in the U.S. which has made the opportunities for these companies difficult to come by. The hopes are high that over the course of the next few years, the legislation will continue to change so that these businesses will be able to function as they choose to, offering cannabis and opportunity to various spaces around the world.