For years, marijuana stocks have been virtually unstoppable, and investors who had the stomach and wherewithal to stick with the still nascent industry were handsomely rewarded.
However, the past six months have not been kind to cannabis stocks. Since the end of March, and through the previous weekend, the Horizons Marijuana Life Sciences ETF, the first exchange-traded fund to focus on cannabis, had declined by 35% -- and that includes dividend payouts.
To many, this decline in marijuana stocks was long overdue. After all, no next-big-thing investment simply shoots through the roof without experiencing growing pains. Right now, the North American pot industry is contending with its fair share of hiccups, and it's brought previously lofty investor expectations back to Earth.