Marijuana News Today: Pot Empire Expands in the U.S.

Marijuana News Today

The marijuana news today has us looking to Florida as one of the largest pot companies in the U.S. expands. Meanwhile, the pot stock market sees moderate gains across the board.

MedMen Enterprises Inc (OTCMKTS:MMNFF, CNSX:MMEN) is a Los Angeles-based marijuana producer and distributor with 35 medical and recreational cannabis stores in the United States. It’s now going to expand that number with a 7,500-square-foot medical marijuana dispensary in West Palm Beach, Florida.

This is MedMen’s first Florida store, but it won’t be the last; of the 15 dispensaries it plans to open in 2019, 12 will be in Florida.

“Florida, it’s a very large market,” said Nick Hansen, MedMen’s director of governmental affairs for the southeast U.S. region. “It’s a high focus for us.” (Source: “MedMen expands its cannabis retail empire to Florida,” CNN, June 14, 2019.)

The Florida market is also tightly contested. The state only has 14 licensed operators and each can only open 35 dispensaries across the state. That cap is going to expire in 2020, but it still limits where these handful of distributors can ply their wares.

That puts MedMen Enterprises Inc in an an envious position as it will be one of the few marijuana companies able to take a bite out of the Florida market. Florida, it should be noted, is a high-population state—fourth in the nation at 19-million people. That’s a lot of potential customers.

The state is also looking to open up its marijuana market, allowing smokable marijuana to be sold and increasing the number of operators in the state to eight.

Better yet for current operators like MedMen, the state is often considered one of best bets to legalize recreational pot in the near future.

If that day comes, MedMen said that it is ready to integrate recreational sales into its medical dispensaries, much like it did in California.

This also highlights an interesting development in the marijuana industry: the growth of U.S. pot stocks.

While the industry has largely been dominated by Canadian-based businesses, as the industry opens up in the U.S. via legalization laws, we’re going to see more marijuana stocks begin to take advantage of the market.

What that means is that we’ll likely see another explosion of young, high-growth companies emerge out of the U.S. as they vie for control of the biggest market on Earth with the already established Canadian businesses that will no doubt try and muscle their way into the American market.

It will be an interesting time for the marijuana stock market, with younger and smaller marijuana businesses native to the U.S. competing with larger and more powerful Canadian ones.

In any case, we’re likely to see big growth for both the smaller companies that will sprout up and the old guard out of Canada when marijuana is eventually legalized in the U.S. on a national level.

MMNFF Stock

One of the things I’ve been focusing lately is the expanding presence of U.S. pot stocks. Seeing as how the above marijuana news today featured MedMen Enterprises Inc , let’s take a deeper dive into what the MMNFF stock offers investors.

MedMen is valuable on the face of things. The company has a strong presence in several U.S. markets, including California.

Considering that MedMen operates in California, a market larger than the entirety of Canada, you’d think that it would be able to at least come close to rivaling Canadian marijuana stocks. But that’s simply not the case.

Concern over U.S. marijuana laws and their mutable nature—after all, for a long time there was a fear that a drug crusader on the federal level could effectively stomp out the nascent marijuana trade in America—has kept MedMen from coming close to its Canadian counterparts.

Furthermore, the company simply does not have the momentum backing it; it’s down over 40% on the past year.

Which isn’t to say it’s totally doomed. MMNFF stock climbed three percent in early-morning trading today, despite being down 10% over the past five days.

The overall takeaway for MedMen Enterprises Inc is to watch and wait. For now, it is way too volatile as to be reliable as a growth marijuana stocks.

On the flip side, its position as a power player in the U.S. market could pay off with big dividends in the years to come as pot laws are expanded in the U.S.

CGC Stock

Speaking of powerful Canadian marijuana stocks, Canopy Growth Corp (NYSE:CGC) is one of the better performers of the day, with gains of about one point in early-morning trading today.

But CGC stock, like many pot stocks, has suffered as of late; the stock is down nearly five percent over the past five days.

But that isn’t unique to Canopy Growth, as most pot stocks have had an up-and-down time in June.

While May was largely a loser for marijuana stocks, June has seen dips and peaks, representing one of the more unpredictable months of 2019 so far for the marijuana market.

Canopy Growth Corp, however, remains strong and I believe it will be emerge from this volatile period with a long, steady period of stock gains.

TLRY Stock

One of the strongest marijuana stocks in the marijuana news today so far, however, is not Canopy Growth, but Tilray Inc (NASDAQ:TLRY).

This volatile marijuana stock climbed to start the day, with TLRY stock gaining over five percent in early-morning trading. But much like its peers, Tilray stock is down about five percent over the past five days.

Tilray is in an interesting position. I have long said that it would break below $40.00 per share, and that was true. However, it appears that the market may have finally found its bottom for the company, as it has held strong around the $40.00 mark.

One of Tilray Inc’s biggest problems is finding its true value after its absurd gains post-initial public offering. We may have finally seen the stock land on solid ground. And with that, TLRY stock may be able to finally start turning its fortunes around. While I probably wouldn’t rush back in quite yet, I would keep an eye on Tilray stock.

MMNFF, CGC, and TLRY Stock Performances

The performances of MMNFF stock (black line), CGC stock (blue line), and TLRY stock (red line) over the past week can be seen on the following chart:

Chart courtesy of StockCharts.com

Analyst Take

The marijuana news today has us looking at the U.S. and the hotbed of potential that it is. The marijuana market is very young on a global scale, and in the U.S., I’d argue that it’s barely a newborn.

With expanding legalization and growing companies, more and more U.S. pot stocks are popping up, eager to get in on the growing market. But until the legal side of things stabilizes in the U.S., the stronger marijuana stocks will be in Canada.