In early 2021, retail investors gathered in WallStreetBets (a sub-section of the Reddit forum (WSB)) launched a stunning campaign, staged a historic short-selling frenzy on Wall Street.
They flocked into small stocks shorted by hedge funds, pushing their prices to stage epic rises, causing some large investment institutions to suffer hundreds of millions of losses.
Although the “war of the century” ended a few days later, and many speculators of WSB have become real “harvested vegetables”, there is no doubt that Wall Street financial markets that have suffered from it have finally begun to pay attention to the existence of this “retail army”.
According to the Wall Street Journal, “Wall Street gamblers” are now turning their attention to marijuana stocks.
In the WSB forum of “become famous at one stroke” in the “Forcing Air War”, users are discussing topics related to cannabis companies.
Affected by this, U.S. industrial cannabis stocks generally rose.
Analysts believe that in addition to the market betting on the Biden administration’s advocacy of legalization of marijuana, it is also inseparable from the help of retail investors in the United States.
Retail investors bet on marijuana stocks
This time, Wall Street is on the opposite side again.
According to Swaggy Stocks, a website specializing in tracking stock codes, cannabis stocks have become the favorites of “Wall Street gamblers” recently.
One of its posts, which said that there is more room for the rise of marijuana stocks Tilray and Aphria, has received about 10,000 other user likes in 12 hours.
There are even posts that cannabis stocks will make them millionaires in 2021, which has received more than 100,000 likes in total.
Another user wrote: “I missed the game post station, but I don’t think we will miss this.”
And as cannabis stocks became a hot topic in the WSB forum, the U.S. industrial cannabis sector rose continuously before the market, Sundial Grower rose nearly 50%, OrganiGram Holdings rose more than 25%, and Aurora Cannabis, Aphria and Tilray rose. More than 10%.
Analysts said that retail investors bet that Biden’s rise will promote the legalization of marijuana nationwide in the United States, so marijuana-related stocks have been rising since the end of last year.
Coinciding with this, in mid-December 2020, Canadian pharmaceutical and marijuana producers Tilray and Aphria agreed to merge their businesses, which means that a new giant is emerging in the fast-growing cannabis industry.
But in any case, the surge momentum like this week is rare – Sundial Grower’s share price doubled in a week, and Aphria and Tilray also rose by almost 70%.
It is worth noting that Wall Street and retail investors seem to be on the opposite side of the cannabis stock.
Of the 14 analysts who studied Tilray, only two analysts gave the stock a “buy” rating, according to FactSet.
Of the 20 analysts who studied Canopy Growth, only two suggested buying stocks.
Analysts believe that the valuation of these marijuana companies is becoming unreasonable, especially Canadian companies such as Tilray, Aphria and Canopy Growth, whose profits are limited even if marijuana is legalized in the United States.
In addition, it should be noted that the extent to which cannabis stocks are shorted is not as serious as that of game stations.
According to the analysis firm Ortex, about 37% of Aphria’s outstanding shares were lent to short sellers, compared with 27.3% at the end of January.
At that time, the short-selling ratio of game post stations had reached 140%.
It is a new trend for retail investors to push stock price fluctuations together.
Industry insider: But it is impossible to have a long-term impact on the market.
Recently, there has been a new trend in the U.S. stock market – retail investors have come together to push the stock price of small companies to rise sharply.
Game post stations and recent fluctuations in cannabis-related stocks are typical examples.
This has long been a common way of operation in virtual currency markets, and traders target their investment as easy-to-promote assets.
Millions of investors have been stuck at home for the past year due to the expanding coronavirus epidemic in the United States.
They turned to non-commission securities company APPs such as Robinhood Markets to participate in day trading in the stock market.
This behavior is increasing in the U.S. stock market.
Casa Verde Capital is a venture capital firm focused on the cannabis industry.
Karan Wadhera, its managing partner, said: “What really drives people crazy is cannabis stocks like Tilray that are listed in the United States.
The sharp rise in their stock price has little to do with the company’s growth prospects. Investors are more concerned about whether the trading software of securities companies such as Robinhood Markets is more convenient to operate.
Earlier this year, investors came together in a frenzy, causing a few stocks and silver prices to soar.
This operation surprised many professionals on Wall Street. The share price of Game Post rose by more than 1,700% in less than three weeks, and the stock price rose from less than $20 to more than $480. Since then, the stock’s share price has fallen back to more than $50.
And this fluctuation in the stock market, retail investors, social media and the role of short sellers have attracted the attention of regulators. But that doesn’t stop day traders from coordinating online.
They’ve been looking for new targets since Game Post and other stocks have fluctuated significantly.
Marijuana has become their new target.
The cannabis fund launched by an exchange tracking cannabis companies rose 15% on Wednesday, the largest one-day increase.
But the fund plummeted by 25% the next day, the largest one-day decline on record for the fund.
Altaf Kassam, head of European investment strategy at Dow Global Advisors, said: “Although day trading activities may cause large fluctuations in some stocks, they are unlikely to affect the whole market.
They may push up the prices of a few stocks, and they are likely to attract new funds, but they are unlikely to have a long-term effect on the market.
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