To say that the stock market has been volatile would be a brutal understatement. The week prior to last, the CBOE Volatility Index, or VIX, which measures the expected volatility of S&P 500 (SNPINDEX: ^GSPC) index options over the next 30 days, hit an all-time record high. If you though the stock market was volatile during the financial crisis, the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) panic has blown that previous mark out of the water.
It took just over three weeks for the benchmark S&P 500 to push from an all-time closing high to official bear market territory, then one additional week for losses to push beyond 30%. Both figures are records for the quickest 20% loss and 30% loss in the history of the S&P 500.
But it's been especially harsh for the cannabis industry, which was already struggling mightily well before COVID-19 became a pandemic.