Are Millennials Missing An Opportunity With Psychedelic Stocks?

• Psychedelic stocks are precisely the type of progressive investment opportunity that generally has more appeal for younger investors
• Psychedelic drugs are revolutionary medications, especially for mental health disorders – and millennials themselves experience higher rates of these disorders

Psychedelic Stock Watch has been unequivocal in its assessment of the potential of psychedelic medicine: nothing short of revolutionary.

We have been equally unambiguous about the investment opportunity represented by psychedelic drug stocks: the best investment opportunity in life sciences today.
 

Put those two factors together, and one would expect millennial investors to be leading the charge into psychedelic stocks. Younger investors are typically first to embrace such progressive thinking.

However, as Psychedelic Stock Watch observed in our previous article, currently millennial investors have a greater passion (fever?) in their investing: cryptocurrencies.

Millennial investors favoring cryptocurrencies over psychedelic stocks

Going right back to the start of Crypto-mania, it is Millennials who have dominated the frantic rush into cryptocurrencies. Indeed, in the middle of 2018, millennial investors had a higher rate of cryptocurrency ownership (17%) than Gen X (9%) and the Baby Boomers (2%) put together. And that trend is continuing.

One could argue that crypto investing is also appealing to investors as a progressive opportunity. Cryptocurrency advocates see these coins as an alternative to the conventional financial system.

However, recent trends seem to suggest that this fascination is rooted more in manic gambling than progressive ideals.

Dogecoin, the hottest cryptocurrency (at least until Elon Musk’s SNL appearance) was literally created as a joke. With its unlimited capacity for coin creation (and unlimited potential for debasement), it’s viability as a mass currency is questionable at best. Improbably, Ethereum now has greater market value than Walmart.

Millennial investors are also generally more inclined toward ESG investments – as another example of progressive investing. Yet with the heavy energy requirements for crypto-mining, cryptocurrencies are not in any way an “ESG” investment.

Then there are psychedelic drugs – and psychedelic drug stocks

Psychedelic drug stocks: the perfect Millennial investment

Psychedelic Stock Watch is not publicizing psychedelic drug stocks just to be progressive or “ESG”. We do so simply because we see this space as one of the most (if not the most) exciting emerging sectors today.
 

1. Gigantic potential market (patient base)
2. Vastly superior clinical results to the existing standard of care
3. Massive financial support for the industry
4. Rapidly growing medical acceptance of these new therapies

The Mental Health Crisis has gone from being a (mere) pandemic to a full-fledged medical catastrophe. Already, as many as 1 in 4 people now suffer from stress-related mental health disorders. COVID-19 lockdowns have caused dramatic increases in the rates of depression, anxiety and substance abuse.

Ironically, Millennials themselves are particularly at risk for these stress-related mental health disorders.

There is a powerful argument to be made that millennial investors have a much greater need for psychedelic drugs than cryptocurrencies. And investing in psychedelic drug stocks is a strong (if indirect) means of helping to bring these drugs to market sooner.

Further motivating Millennials to invest in psychedelic drug stocks are the consistently superior clinical results (versus existing therapies) in treating depression, anxiety and substance abuse. Most recently, it’s the exciting potential of MDMA to treat PTSD that is grabbing media headlines.

Based on the gigantic need and the demonstrated potency of these drugs, institutional investors have been leading the charge into this industry.

Since Compass Pathways (US:CMPS) went public last September, over US$700 million has flooded into this sector. Most of that capital has been raised by public companies. This is a well-funded industry.

Equally important is the migration of some of the scientific community’s brightest minds into psychedelic drug R&D. After a 50-year deep-freeze in drug R&D on these substances (due to Prohibition) there is a voracious appetite – and enormous enthusiasm – for new research on these drugs.

This is not only leading to steady progress in advancing psychedelic medicine to treat mental health conditions. It is producing a rapid expansion of this R&D into many of the largest (and most lucrative) medical treatment markets.

Psychedelic drug stocks are an investment for progressive thinkers. Psychedelic drug stocks are an ESG investment with the potential to literally change the world – for the better.

The perfect investment window for Millennials to enter psychedelic stocks

The point of this article isn’t to tell millennial investors to get out of cryptocurrencies. However, by any metric, cryptocurrencies are overbought. Conversely, by any metric, psychedelic stocks are oversold – as they have been caught in the downdraft of the NASDAQ selloff.

This would be a great time for millennial investors to rotate some of their cryptocurrency profits into psychedelic drug stocks. Making the opportunity even more ripe are the current sector catalysts for this industry.

Public industry leader MindMed Inc (US:MNMD / CAN:MMED) has just uplisted to the NASDAQ. Private industry leader, atai Life Sciences is going public (on the NASDAQ) and has already filed for its IPO financing.

After an initial market flurry on news of the MindMed uplisting, psychedelic stocks have been pulled back down to their previous lows as the U.S. tech selloff has intensified. But it’s a correction based on a dubious premise.

Supposedly, it’s “inflation fears” (and the possibility of higher interest rates) that has been dragging down NASDAQ stocks in recent weeks.

Yet real estate (the most interest-rate sensitive market of all) continues to go straight up. Unless investors fear that real estate markets are about to go into an abrupt nose-dive, it’s hard to see the selloff in tech stocks – on inflation fears – having more legs.

Cryptocurrencies are expensive. Psychedelic stocks are cheap. Millennials should have a strong motivation to invest in both.

Opportunity knocks.

DISCLOSURE: The writer holds shares in MindMed Inc.