For several years now the cannabis industry has seen a boom in the number of marijuana-related companies popping up as well as the amount of investments being made in the market. Although from a federal level, cannabis is still illegal, nine states have put in regulation to make cannabis legal for recreational use while 20 others have some form of legalization for medicinal use of the plant. As marijuana continues to grow, more and more individuals are wondering how they can get involved in this budding market.
The company known as Arcview Market Research, one of the top researcher companies for the cannabis industry has stated that marijuana sales have grown by 25% from 2016 and could hit a high of $21.8 billion by the year 2020. This number does not seem far off as many states are beginning to put in positive regulation to allow consumption of cannabis. While the actual market on the plant has grown, companies have been looking for investors to help grow the industry to an even larger amount.
Marijuana stocks have been a tricky situation for some time due to the federal legislation. Many analysts have stated that there is a large amount of opportunity for growth in the industry due to it being so new. The market for marijuana is currently comprised of small companies that have a limited amount of market share. Because of this, many of the companies in the industry are not able to be traded on some of the larger exchanges and thus look to the OTC market to gain capital. Other companies in the industry have looked to venture capital funds to help raise money to grow their businesses.
One of the most popular ways to invest in cannabis has been through the use of the U.S. Marijuana index. The index has been around since the summer of 2015 but has been extremely volatile since that time. The index has been hitting new highs recently, but many have been looking to the smaller level of investing to put into their portfolios.
Some of the larger companies in the market have managed to gain quite a solid amount of the market share such as GW Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ:GWPH). GW has grown by a staggering amount since its IPO as their pharmaceutical approach to the cannabis industry has taken many by storm. GW produced the first ever prescription medicine derived from the cannabis plant known as Sativex while also producing other prescription medicines such as Epidiolex. Because of this breakthrough technology, GW has managed to stay at the forefront of the industry for quite some time.
Another one of the large players in the market has been Canopy Growth Corp (OTC:TWMJF). The company has also managed to sustain a large amount of growth over the time period they have been public, prompting investors to take a closer look. The Canadian company has been working on producing the actual marijuana plant and exporting it to countries that have legalized the substance on a national level for medicinal use.
The company Aphria (OTC:APHQF) has been one of the other big players in the Canadian cannabis market, producing marijuana for export as well. The company has taken advantage of the legislation in the Canadian market to help grow their business.
Over the past few years, industry growth for marijuana has been extremely substantial. As we move deeper into 2018, it will be interesting to see which companies are able to continue growing at a high rate. Only time will tell how large the market for cannabis can continue to grow too.
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