If you'd invested $1,000 in Canada-based vegetable-grower-turned-cannabis-focused-grower Village Farms International (NASDAQ: VFF) at the start of this year, your investment would now be worth $2,940. And if you had chosen to plunk that grand down at the same time on cannabis-focused real estate investment trust (REIT) Innovative Industrial Properties (NYSE: IIPR), you'd have exactly doubled your money.
These would certainly be fantastic returns in any market, but they're particularly noteworthy when you consider that the broader market has returned 20.1% over this period and the overall cannabis sector has been struggling. Indeed, shares of the three largest Canadian cannabis growers -- Canopy Growth, Aurora Cannabis, and Cronos Group -- have all lost ground in 2019. They're down about 10%, 3%, and 10%, respectively.
Let's look at what's happened with Village Farms and Innovative Industrial Properties this year to cause investors to drive up the prices of their stocks, with an eye toward determining if they still look like attractive buys today.