For years, there wasn't a hotter investment opportunity on Wall Street than marijuana stocks. Until the end of the first quarter of 2019, you could have thrown a dart at a list of publicly traded pot stocks and likely come out a significant winner.
But all of that changed in April 2019. Over the past 15 months, cannabis skeptics have come out of the woodwork. In Canada, persistent supply issues have kept legal product out of licensed dispensaries, while high tax rates on legal weed in the U.S. have made it very difficult for licensed producers to compete with black-market cannabis. Add on the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, and you have a recipe for disaster.
Yet, in spite of the record-breaking coronavirus crash during the first quarter, five pot stocks managed to end the first-half of the year (pardon the pun) in the green.