One difficulty investors face when trying to invest in disruptive technologies is that things rarely pan out as expected. Solar investors who thought they were being conservative by going long the Invesco Solar ETF (TAN) have been trounced over the past five years. The same holds true for the majority of those 3D printing stocks that were once high-flying momentum plays, only to be market laggards today. Even venture capitalists whose job is to pick winning startups only manage to get it right about one-tenth of the time. For retail investors, market timing can often decimate returns in the long run. The problem is compounded for first-time investors who haven’t learned how bad emotions can affect investment decisions. And nowhere did we see more first-time investors clamoring on board than in the world of cannabis stocks.
There’s been a fair amount of consolidation lately in the cannabis industry as the dust continues to settle. Larger players are getting larger and over-the-counter pump-and-dumps are starting to evaporate. When trying to compare players in the industry, there are now Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) we can use like kilos grown and sold or retail licenses granted. Following some fairly big acquisition announcements, The Motley Fool tallied up the biggest holders of retail licenses which – as of