Merrill Lynch Says The Marijuana Industry is Only Moving Up

Merrill Lynch, the investment branch of Bank of America and a powerhouse in the areas of financial and investment advising, has circulated a detailed overview of the marijuana industry.
The report is close to 50 pages long and has intensive research into a variety of different financial metrics and business predictions having to do with the marijuana industry.
However it has not yet been published publicly, Chris Goldstein of Philly420 has identified a leaked version of the document.

In reference to Goldstein, the document goes over a variety of marijuana-related products, markets, and fields. It also addresses the current legal status of marijuana, since this plays an obviously central role in the overall profitability of marijuana as a legal product. Eventually, the report settles into a long exploration of the investment possibilities of what Merrill Lynch advisors termed the “Life Science Tools” sector of the marijuana industry.

This sector has to do with the lab testing required by states where cannabis is allowed legally.
These test screen for a multiple different safety factors and marijuana must initially be analyzed and approved by these labs prior to being sold in marijuana shops. As worries over the dangers of pesticides have become a trending topic this year, many states have started creating stricter laws to regulate the types of pesticides that can be used on marijuana crops.

Complying with these new and stricter regulations is likely to become an increasingly important—and increasingly costly—factor of the overall marijuana industry. For Merrill Lynch, this stands for a potentially profitable place for cannabis investors to focus their money, which is why their analysts concluded that the company is “bullish on the cannabis testing market.”

The report also pointed out a number of “major players” involved in manufacturing the equipment need to conduct cannabis lab tests. These include: “Agilent Technologies, a $4 billion dollar company based in Santa Clara, California; Waters Corporation a $2 billion dollar company based in Massachusetts; and Thermo Fisher Scientific a $17 billion dollar company that keeps two offices in Philadelphia.”
The report also “estimates that the market for this equipment could grow to between $50 million and $100 million by 2020.”

The burgeoning marijuana industry has already gained the attention of a wide range of investors with deep pockets. A report like this, coming from an investment powerhouse like Merrill Lynch, could be a sign of even bigger business opportunities in the future—especially as marijuana becomes legal in more states throughout the united states.