The Cannabis Act in Canada has been one of the most instrumental pieces of legislation implemented in the cannabis industry since its inception. The bill known as C-45, or the “Cannabis Act” has been crucial in cementing Canada’s adult-use market nationwide. The bill was recently voted on and approved for the third time, meaning that the industry is on its way to giving adults the ability to buy cannabis around the country.

Many of the ETFs in the sector were benefitted quite positively because of this news such as Horizons Marijuana Life Sciences ETF (HMMJ). This ETF managed to raise by a staggering 6.2% which is not as large as the ETFMG Alternative Harvest ETF (MJ) which managed to raise itself by a slightly higher 6.6%. Other ETFs in the space also saw large gains after this large announcement came to light.

The ETF gain in value is a good way to view the industry as a whole because it is such a broad representation of how companies and growers are doing in the space. Companies such as Organigram (ORGMF) have also seen large gains with Organigram seeing the most at almost 20% growth in over a week or so. Aurora Cannabis also managed to see growth equaling as much as 15.4% to as much as $9.3 Canadian dollars. One of the other large players in the space, MedReleaf (MEDFF) rose by around 11.7%. These gains are quite large when compared to any other industry, and only look to continue with this positivity as more markets find fair legislation in the near future.

The two top gainers from the larger cannabis companies come from Canopy Growth (CGC, WEED) and the Cronos Group (CRON) which both gained by around 4.3% and 5.8% respectively. This momentum has helped to turn around the sentiment from the beginning of the year that resulted in the prices of these stocks dropping lower. The beginning of the year was a tough time for the cannabis industry as many stocks were responding speculatively to various bouts of news showing difficulties in legislation around the U.S. this has completely turned around with news of the U.S. becoming more friendly to weed from a federal level and this news from our Northern neighbors changing the space completely.

Many stocks have remained in this negative trend when looking at the broader YTD category. This could be attributed to the above notion of negative news from the beginning of the year. Prior to this, these stocks such as Organigram were up by as much as 30%. After the beginning of the year, some stocks saw their prices drop by around 20%. This is clearly not a reflection of the actual value of the companies given how paradigm shifting these businesses have presented themselves as.

The moves by these companies this week are clearly coming from a speculation perspective based on this positive news coming out of Canada. This is quite a positive though because it has helped to bring these prices back to their true value. It seems as though it will still take some time before this industry can begin to even get close to its full potential. Until that time, it seems as though it will continue to be a battle between legislators and the public, but with the quickly shifting public sentiment in a positive direction, it seems as though this may not be a huge issue in the coming years. The hopes are high that these companies can continue to shape and reshape the industry on cannabis.