Since the year began, few if any industries are blazing ahead more than the marijuana industry. The very first publicly traded cannabis exchange-traded fund, the Horizons Marijuana Life Sciences ETF, which holds about four dozen pot stocks of various weightings, is up 60% year to date, through Wednesday, March 13.
If you’re looking for a single reason why marijuana stocks are so hot, don’t. It’s actually a confluence of factors and milestones that have built up over time and validated the weed industry as a legitimate business model. Here are just some of the reasons future sales expectations for the cannabis industry are, aptly, growing like a weed:
Canada’s legalization of recreational marijuana
33 U.S. states approving cannabis in some capacity
An all-time record number of survey-takers favoring legalization in the U.S.
But among the dozens upon dozens of publicly traded pot stocks, one company stands out because it’s not like any other…
Innovative Industrial Properties (NYSE:IIPR).
This pure-play pot stock is unlike anything you’ve seen before
Innovative Industrial Properties actually became the first cannabis-related stock to go the initial public offering route on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in December 2016. While we often think of Cronos Group as leading the way in uplisting to a major U.S. exchange from the over-the-counter (OTC) exchange, or Canopy Growth as being the first marijuana stock to uplist from the OTC exchange to the NYSE in May 2018, we have to remember that Innovative Industrial Properties was there for much longer.
IIP, as the company is also known, is a real estate investment trust (REIT) within the cannabis space. As with any REIT, this means it purchases land and facilities — in this case, cultivation space and processing facilities — with the expectation that it’ll then lease these properties out for an extended period of time for a profit. Much further down the road, REITs can choose to sell some of their assets for a profit, then reinvest this capital into new properties, thereby beginning the cycle anew…
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