CANNAINVESTOR Magazine June 2016 | Page 46

INVESTING IN THE CANNABIS INDUSTRY From a Retail Investor’s Perspective By Louis Kyron In 2014, a newspaper inked “investing in marijuana stocks may be a growth play for the long term, if you can stand the risk of getting burned in the short run”. For the longest time investing in this Industry was left to the Retail Investor to research and select those companies to invest in. Fast-forward to 2016 and the time is now for the Retail Investor to consider this industry but because only a few companies have Institutional Investment, the majority of the publicly listed companies are without any Analyst coverage. A successful Retail Investor requires timely, accurate, reliable information and be both adaptive and nimble. IT IS HIGH TIME FOR THE RETAIL INVESTOR! After years of watching TV shows where hopeful entrepreneurs pitch their business ideas, it is apparent that there are few places more dangerous to stand than between a pet owner’s wallet and the latest fads for Rascal and Gizmo. Forbes.com (Feb, 5, 2015), in its article on why the marijuana (MJ) industry is prime for the Retail Investor, noted that Americans spend $1,500 a year on a pet yet the typical cannabis consumer will spend at least 20% more than that annually. GROWING FASTER THAN YOUR FAVOURITE HERB The landscape in just five years will look nothing like CANNAINVESTOR Magazine it does today and will be completely unrecognizable to that of only two years ago. My term for this phenomenon is Ecoforming (terraforming the industry or economy). Did you think in 2014 that the medical marijuana (MMJ) and recreational use would be as widely accepted as it is today and would become the