The world’s first pot-focused exchange-traded fund
Investors can gain exposure to a budding industry, set to profit from Canadian legalisation
Monday, April 10, 2017
The launch of the world’s first cannabis-focused exchange-traded fund (ETF), on the Toronto Stock Exchange, is welcome news to aficionados of marijuana. As with any ETF, the fund spares would-be investors the need to pick out their own favourite stocks, or indeed weed out dodgy ones, as it will simply replicate and track an index, in this case the North American Medical Marijuana Index. The most important factor driving dreamy valuations of Canadian cannabis companies is the imminence of full legalisation, and the ensuing expectation of a vastly larger market. This means that companies in the sector are currently “trading like speculative tech stocks”, says Khurram Malik of Jacob Capital Management, based on sometimes rosy projections of future recreational sales.
