If pot is so hot, why aren’t directors buying their own companies?

Stockhead dug up a variety of answers, from blackout periods to the stock just being too strong, but as one fund manager pointed out some just aren’t that great an investment.

The 29 on our list are collectively down 5 per cent over the last fortnight.

But could this be the future for ASX pot stocks?

Market researcher, index manager and general pot enthusiast New Cannabis Ventures says the value of its Canadian cannabis index rose by 36 per cent this week after the top two tiers of companies reported quarterly sales of $C2.5m to $C10m.

The WHO has finally delivered its recommendations as to what the UN should do about marijuana.

It said cannabidiol, the bit that might help that joint pain (no one knows yet because, as sometimes needs remembering, actual clinical data isn’t there to prove it) should be taken off the list of dangerous drugs entirely.

It says THC should be put lower down the list and not in the same category as meth and cocaine. The next vote by the UN’s drugs committee is in March, but because of the timing of this report, it could be another year before they look at this issue.

READ: ASX cannabis stocks right now: here’s everything you need to know

And if you hadn’t already heard, weed is getting way stronger.

The boss of Colorado potency testing lab Charas Scientific says in the 1980s THC levels in weed only measured around 10 per cent. Today it’s up around 20 per cent, says Andy LaFrate, and sometimes as high as 30 per cent.

Keeping up with the companies

MMJ Group (ASX:MMJ) has lost its CEO after just a year on the job.

Jason Conroy resigned effective March 1 and the company gave no reason for his departure.

Mr Conroy was brought in to steady the ship and lead it through the choppy wash of early stage venture investing.

In IPO Land, CannVaLate is delaying its ASX adventure in order to add, to its software play, property investing.

The method with which they’re going about it caused some division among the experts we spoke to, but they’re going ahead, later updating Stockhead with the news that they’ve bought 100 acres of farmland south-east of Melbourne to become a cannabis cultivation hub for lease.

eSense’s (ASX:ESE) e-ciggie deal hasn’t delivered it any money yet, outside the initial trial. According to the quarterly report, that purchase order at the start of December wasn’t paid for in that month.

Thanks to that deal it’s released all of those performance shares from escrow that were the subject of a shareholder uprising and ASX questioning at the start of 2018 over whether a series of deals qualified as appropriate hurdles for directors to receive said rights.

Croplogic (ASX:CLI) is sniffing around for a farm to grow hemp on in Oregon, after a string of failures that largely revolved around a too-highly priced IPO and an expensive growth-by-acquisition strategy.

A scan through the quarterlies of the 29 pot stocks on our list shows only two making enough money in the December quarter to be cash flow positive.

Suda (ASX:SUD) is, but it’s only on our list because it did a deal with Zelda last year to think about marijuana mouth sprays. And Affinity Energy (ASX:AEB) is finally making money not from pot, but from algae-based nutraceuticals and fish food.

But unlike last year, when almost no one was making money, let alone from pot, only five companies took zero cash last quarter. Admittedly, Cann Group (ASX:CAN) only scraped its way out of that group with $1000 in receipts though.

Affinity, which used to be Algae.Tec, is also still waiting on cannabis licenses applied for in 2017 and early 2018. So it’s lobbying WA politicians for help.

Althea (ASX:AGH) made $82,000 in the quarter from its 310 patients, which works out at $264 per person over three months.

THC Global (ASX:THC) is feeling its oats after getting all of those licences, taking a group of broker types and journalists on a tour of their Southport manufacturing facility. We’ll report back on what it looks like.

And finally, Elixinol (ASX:EXL) is moving to Europe, setting up sales networks there for its hemp products.

This is a list of the pot stocks which have full or partial cannabis operations.

Ticker Name Price Feb 6 $ Market cap 2-week % change
AEB AFFINITY ENERGY AND HEALTH L 0.01 $8.8M -0.18
AGH ALTHEA GROUP HOLDINGS LTD 0.32 $69.1M 0.21
AC8 AUSCANN GROUP HOLDINGS LTD 0.50 $143.7M -0.31
BDA BOD AUSTRALIA LTD 0.48 $31.9M -0.02
BOT BOTANIX PHARMACEUTICALS LTD 0.09 $73.5M 0.26
CGB CANN GLOBAL LTD (suspended since July 30) 0.04 $59.5M 0
CAN CANN GROUP LTD 2.06 $282.2M -0.12
CAE CANNINDAH RESOURCES LTD 0.02 $3.4M -0.13
CP1 CANNPAL ANIMAL THERAPEUTICS 0.13 $12.6M -0.04
CHP CHAPMANS LTD (suspended since Dec 6) 0.01 $1.4M 0
CPH CRESO PHARMA LTD 0.42 $55.5M -0.21
EXL ELIXINOL GLOBAL LTD 3.31 $433.4M 0.26
ESE ESENSE-LAB LTD-CDI 0.03 $5.0M -0.04
EVE EVE INVESTMENTS LTD 0.01 $11.4M -0.17
IDT IDT AUSTRALIA LTD 0.17 $40.3M 0.21
IHL IMPRESSION HEALTHCARE LTD 0.02 $10.4M -0.1
LSH LIFESPOT HEALTH LTD 0.07 $5.6M -0.13
MDC MEDLAB CLINICAL LTD 0.42 $84.2M 0.07
MXC MGC PHARMACEUTICALS LTD 0.04 $47.3M -0.05
MMJ MMJ GROUP HOLDINGS LTD 0.25 $52.9M -0.12
RNO RHINOMED LTD 0.19 $25.5M -0.14
ROO ROOTS SUSTAINABLE AGRICU-CDI 0.09 $5.6M -0.11
RGI ROTO-GRO INTERNATIONAL LTD 0.30 $28.9M -0.16
SCU STEMCELL UNITED LTD 0.02 $11.3M -0.05
SUD SUDA PHARMACEUTICALS LTD 0.01 $14.2M 0
THC THC GLOBAL GROUP LTD 0.48 $59.2M -0.02
TPE TPI ENTERPRISES LTD 1.17 $97.3M -0.04
YPB YPB GROUP LTD 0.02 $12.8M -0.16
ZLD ZELDA THERAPEUTICS LTD 0.06 $41.5M -0.07
Wordpress Table Plugin

Featured Companies

You might be interested in