Repost Fascinating discussion - particularly appreciate the insider views of Alan and others deep in the industry.
However, insiders don't make the market, even in a mature sector, and most assuredly in an emerging sector where you are forced to work with assumptions based on speculation, and then once there's some consensus on what the likely scenario will be in terms of timing, scope and regulation, start analyzing companies for those that seem to position themselves better to take advantage of that scenario.
Speaking of Thailand, I arrived in Japan in early 73, and was immediately told I'd be going down south to "the Rose Garden" in the 'land of smiles'. I'd seen "King of Siam', travel brochures, and did a little research at the base library - my anticipation grew and grew the more I researched my destination. I prepared for a tropical working environment of lush green jungles, great food. I packed my swim trunks and flip-flops, ready for a working paradise vacation..
When I arrived I discovered the "Rose Garden" was a sarcastic reference for the muddy, 12 hour/7 day week, sweat-filled showerless dysentery-racked canvas-tent experience that unfolded before me over the next few months.
I slept in my swim trunks on a cot - the closest they ever got to water was if it was raining when I slogged to the 4-holer in the middle of the night. The flip-flops were sucked off my feet by the mud somewhere between my hootch and the head one evening. The only "recreation" was the makeshift squadron bar with sometimes cold beer or the "budda" the "bush bunnies" would bring across the wire along with corpsman-puzzling STDs if you cared to partake of that (sick bay handed out penicillin for "NSU" like M&Ms to a kindergarten class).
In other words, not like I expected at all. I've learned over the years life is like that.
(And FWIW, I'm going back next Jan with the wife, a bunch of the guys I served with live there now and we're having a reunion of sorts. I'm looking forward to it.)
Until Trudeau's signature ink is dry on the Royal Acceptance line of the Canadian legislation, we really don't know when (or even if) the anticipated event will occur, and how the regulations will craft the landscape. And THEN we'll begin to discover what the market actually looks like, how much of the black market (which again we can only guess the size) is co-opted by the legal market, how many potential customers are sitting on the sidelines because of the current illegalities, and whether there's enough or too much supply, and who is undercapitalized / over-indebted for the reality.
But surpassing that, one thing I can be as sure of as anything else is that 75% of the stock traders know little or nothing about any of it, when "Royal Acceptance" is upon us they'll just see the stocks start taking off and jump on anything with a cannabis theme including Sally's Saskatchewan Embroidered Pot Holders.
Note: there's nothing that says Canada won't end up having to go back under the legislative hood once the Senate gets done with it if the House finds their final product too distasteful to accept. Should that happen toss all viability projections into the shredder.
But accepting that risk, fall legalization is the event I'm holding for, and I'll take profits at the first hint of post-rush consolidation (see mid-Jan 2018). Then I can start doing market analysis with some numbers that I can be confident have some veracity, with plenty of cash to take advantage of reality.
Granted, the insider analysis of Ted, Alan, et. al. is welcome and interesting, but it all is predicated on fundamental assumptions that have yet to be validated and may well not be. Hell, the guys that may be the winners are the "vulture capitalists" who are amassing the resources to pick off the bankruptcies in the next year or two, whose only downside risk is missing out on potential profits of going long now.
That said, if I didn't think there was value I wouldn't be reading their articles and comments. The only thing I'm reasonably confident in however, is that there will be a stampede. I've run enough cattle to know it's inevitable, you just never know for sure when it will happen, which direction it will take and where you'll end up - trying to regroup.