The Great Cannabis Crash of 2019
California is famous for its cyclical booms and busts: housing, dotcoms, gold mining. Guess which industry is next
Tuesday, January 14, 2020
Bad news about the so-called "Green Rush" rolled in slowly at first, picking up steam around the end of last summer. Stocks started to dive. Layoffs were announced. Executives who just months earlier were forecasting great riches suddenly acknowledged — mostly in whispers — the deepening gloom. Since last August, the North American Marijuana Index, which tracks cannabis stocks, has fallen by half. The problem with pot stocks isn't limited to California. It's continental: too many investors looking for a quick buck creates a bubble, as with Internet stocks in 1999, or housing in 2007. That bubble has now burst. (See also: Dare we hope for federal legalization?)