National cannabis retail chain Choom Holdings (CHOO.C) was embarrassed Monday after details of its 27-page appeal to the Vancouver Board of Variance asking that body
I shot out of town for a few weeks recently, managing to get well drenched in a tent in the BC rainforest, and being without
CBD-focused CSE companies Sweet Earth (SE.C) and Mota Ventures (MOTA.C) have announced their intent to join forces on the development and distribution of CBD dog
In streaming content news, the recent Microsoft experiment of trying to compete with Amazon-owned Twitch with their own Mixer platform, has come to a sorry
This week’s digest of mushroom moves is a mixed bag of trash and glory, with the shrooms sector increasingly looking like the early days of the cannabis rush.
Loblaws’ (L.T) big ass 1300-store pharmacy chain, Shoppers Drug Mart, announced this morning they’re now offering same day delivery of medical cannabis products in the
The Greater Fool Theory is the single greatest driving force of the markets right now. Balance sheets can eat a dick. Growth potential is irrelevant.
When we first heard of Vodis Pharma (VP.C) it was a tiny group that couldn’t get its unlicensed Delta BC-based cannabis facility looked at by
When a company shows up out of nowhere and announces they’re buying a newspaper, but that nothing will change if not for the better, that they have money and resources to compliment what’s already there, and that journalism will always be at the core of what they do, don’t buy it. It’s always a lie. In March, Media Central (FLYY.C) CEO Brian Kalish got in front of a camera to talk about how, ‘hey guys, we know the Georgia Straight has been around for 53 years, but we’re bringing it back to its heart.’
Ever get the feeling, looking at your watchlist, that you’re seeing the same thing over and over? That maybe there’s interesting stuff out there you just haven’t heard about yet? I put a simple question to Twitter today: “Give me a ticker symbol you think I should be writing about (limit one per person), three reasons you think it’s great, and one thing you’ll openly admit they need to do better.” I got 35. Gulp.
I love it when a plan comes together. Predictmedix (PMED.C) continued to launch itself upward this week, jumping from $0.72 to $0.98 in just days,
Far be it for me to stand up for Canopy Growth Corp (WEED.T), a company that has only succeeded in one thing in its entire existence; convincing folks to buy its stock despite never having done anything else right. In recent quarters, and through three CEOs, Canopy has been pretty darn forthright that it was going to lose money for a while because it was broken.
Because this story is about The Green Organic Dutchman (TGOD.T) and cannabis investors bear grudges, the vast majority of people reading it will already be saying the words, “Fuck Parry, you’ll pump anything for money.”
So let’s get some things out of the way before we start. 1) TGOD isn’t paying for this story, and haven’t been a client for well over a year. 2) TGOD might not be a fan of this story
When weed legalized in Canada, I wasn’t a consumer participant. Smoking up has never been my jam. I know some like the ritual of it
When the history books are written on this passage of our lives, under pandemic lockdown and with once-in-three-generations levels of unemployment, they’ll note that in
Micro-mobility ride-sharing, which is the terminology that’s been coined for e-scooters, bike-shares, mopeds and the like, is clearly an idea that has a future. Small enough to park anywhere (we’ll get to the dark side of that in a second), cheap enough to mass produce, able to be electrified and charged easily, and tied to a payment app that tracks a load of data, this business concept has everything going for it – and is being fucked up by just about everyone involved.
If Tilray (TLRY.Q) will leave any sort of legacy on the Canadian cannabis landscape, it will be that, for a short time and by virtue of a well-timed and paper-lined public listing, the CEO was the highest paid CEO in North America. For a hot minute, Americans bought in by the truckload and drove the shareprice up like DryShips (DRYS), making the boss a very paper rich man. Everything else the company has managed to achieve has been downhill from there.
We get a lot of clients wanting to be written about on Mondays because that’s when everyone drops their good news. I usually try to
I break laws sometimes. I speed on the highway. I possess more than the 30 gram legal limit of weed products. I sneak food into
For a company that once upon a time figured a great business model in the cannabis sector would be to tattle on other license holders
Supreme Cannabis (FIRE.T) got a new President and CEO today in Beena Goldenberg, former chief executive officer of Hain-Celestial Canada, and a bona fide pro in the natural and plant-based consumer packaged goods business. This would appear to be a good hire for a company that already has a great reputation for quality products in an industry where the only way to differentiate yourself is being absurdly cheap or absurdly good. She’s picked a fine time to jump in; the company has already done some hard work in turning its fortunes around, and (to me) looks like its found a nice bottom to launch off.
At Equity.Guru, we’ve been tight with Nexus Gold (NXS.V) boss Alex Klenman for years. he’s been through it with Nexus, from former CEOs selling off his stock in secret, filing their insde trading docs a year late, to stock promoters demanding money and then, upon being refused, crashing the stock, to dark pool shenanigans and more. We’ve laid out a lot of those issues in the past as an explanation how a gold explorer that seems to have some interesting land packages, and does regular work, can find itself so damnedly underwater for so long. Company puts out news, stock starts to lift, massive selling bangs it down. Company puts out news, massive sell orders show up that spook the market, stock drops, sell orders go away.
“Let them say what they want, we know what we’re doing, and we’re doing the work,” Michael Frank told me a month ago, as he
Karim Rayani is a deal guy from way back, a non-stop money raiser, deal maker, handshaker and groover/shaker. If you needed a guy to invest in a biotech deal, Karim would go find him. If you needed some dough to kickstart a palladium mine, Karim will have a guy who knows a guy. And if you needed someone to write about your company, he’d be on the phone bothering me several times a day, squeezing me on my rate, selling me a tale that these guys. “My man, these guys, you have to meet them, they have something special. Sometimes it would even be special.
There’s no doubt a lot of people invest in a sector by just plopping their dough behind whichever company is the biggest, or the one
The Wayland Group (WAYL.C) announced Thursday Austria-based Ring Holding International AG will purchase their Maricann assets, which essentially make up their entire business, for the bargain price of $12.3 million as part of ongoing bankruptcy proceedings. The purchaser of the Maricann assets is a family office with a core focus on the manufacturing of lever arches used in ring binders. Yes, ring binders.
Oddball pharmaceutical player Revive Therapeutics (RVV.C) found itself on the back end of a warning by the BCSC this week, that certain German players in the smallcap promotion space had over-hyped the mushroom/cannabis/biotech deal and promised big wins inappropriately for anyone who invested. As a marketing partner of Revive, I got a few panicky texts from certain folks wondering if that meant trouble for us – or them. It’s not a problem for us; our coverage has been appropriately even-handed.
When the cannabis edibles space first became a potentially legal thing in Canada, my first thought was about how my life would change for the
Long time readers know, a year or two back, we wrote a lot about a US multi-state operator (MSO) in the cannabis dispensary space, iAnthus (IAN.C). We liked the company as it accelerated its dispensary acquisition program but stopped coverage in early 2019, with the shareprice in the $5 range, as it began to overpay for assets in a land grab with competitors we believed would ultimately have few winners. Today, iAnthus has put out some uncomfortable news announcing that, because it is involved in a lawsuit with creditors, it has chosen to default on debenture interest payments.
I have a list of companies that want me to write about them that, for the last few years, has never got to an end.
It’s never been clearer that many Canadian cannabis companies were built, from the outset, poorly. As the economy creaks and groans and every sector takes
Trust me, there’s nothing I’d like more, as the publisher of a financial markets-focused media outlet, than to tell you all it’s time to buy
When new sectors emerge, as cannabis did in 2013 and psychedelics are doing right now, microcap companies that have struggled in other sectors will often pivot into new business. Miners become weed companies, then biotech companies, then shroom companies, as boards and management pursue new opportunities that might one day prove better than the last.
GTEC Holdings (GTEC.C) is a company we’ve written about a lot, a BC-based cannabis grower that laid out a business model of multiple small licensed grow facilities, hitting the premium artisan weed market. Their products are great, their costs are low, and they’ve never yet benefited from the irrational weed booms of the ’15, ’16, and ’17 years because they were late to get those licenses.
This means, they’ve experienced all the weed industry dives, but none of the runs. Their stock price: $0.09, good for a market cap of just $11 million.
When the savings and loan crisis in the US hit in 1989, a lot of slow-moving investors lost their dough thinking the worst couldn’t possible
No company in the Canadian cannabis space polarizes people like Green Organic Dutchman (TGOD.T), which roared to the public markets on perhaps the biggest promote yet seen, raised nine-digit totals along the way, swept in more first time private placement participants than any company before them, and then did… well… nothing, for a long time. With top brass having been walked recently and plans to super-size the company grow facilities shelved in the wake of underwhelming need for more weed, TGOD has made no secret it is at a moment of recalibration, but investors will have expected to see more than this.
Okay, so the world is burning, the Russians and Saudis are pouring low-cost fuel over it, the Americans are shocked that a reality TV show
Today was a day that daytraders have been looking forward to for some time; the day that shroom stocks finally gripped the road and took off. Mind Medicine (MMED.E) ripped 90% to $0.77 on the back of 15m shares traded, reminding anyone who’d listen that ex-Canopy CEO Bruce Linton and pretend billionaire Kevin O’Leary were on board. Champignon Brands (SHRM.C) zoomed 40% to $0.33 on a lot smaller market awareness spend byt a handy ticker, Roadman Investments (LITT.V) was up 30% to $0.065 being sucked along in the other two companies’ wake, and Revive Therapeutics (RVV.C) was up 81% to $0.10 on ripples caused by the rest.
A quick scan of headlines today would tell a harrowing story that Heritage Cannabis (CANN.C) was in big trouble and had lost $13 million and pandemonium had broken loose, and dogs and cats were going to be living together any time now. That’s because the company led their Q4 financials news release today with their yearly metrics filling the headlines, while their not-so-rough quarterly numbers were largely and inexplicably hidden from view.
As happens whenever a global crisis hits, there are plenty of investors currently watching the global Coronavirus outbreak and looking to panic sell. There are also a few looking to capitalize on the opportunities found in potential doom. Like folks who buy gun stocks whenever a military conflict breaks out, or those who buy gold as a safe haven when the world’s leaders engage in a game of ‘Armageddon chicken.’ a pandemic brings about macroeconomic changes that can be utilised to make money.
Invictus MD Strategies (GENE.V) announced tonight that, in accordance with its efforts to work through creditor protection proceedings, it has been kicked off the Venture Exchange. On the upside, if Invictus’ history of going back on news releases is anything to go by, we’ll receive another release inside ten days that the bankruptcy proceedings have been cancelled and they’ll continue on as usual. Because that’s how it’s always been for Invictus, which has the worst track record in Canada’s cannabis space for announcing things, only to un-announce them very shortly after.
Respect where it’s due, I haven’t been to an investor conference in a long time where I came away interested in most of what I saw, let alone *everything* I saw, but this year’s Gravitas Securities Growth Conference lineup absolutely hit it out of the park. The GSGC isn’t the biggest show around, but they know how to turn out the playahs, and the only way you keep big money showing up is to be a little bit picky with what you offer them. Don’t waste anyone’s time and they’ll know it’s cool to return.
As part of an ongoing process to deal with its bankruptcy, Wayland Group (WAYL.C) is dispensing with several foreign assets that were once touted as being amazing international opportunities, and it’s doing so at prices you can afford. The courts have granted approval for WAYL to get rid of its Colombian subsidiary, Colmed Pharmaceuticals, which was purchased in an all paper deal for 11 million shares a little over a year ago. Who’s buying it? It turns out, one of the companies that originally sold it to them, RG5 Investments.
With a little over and hour left in the year 2019, past 10PM on December 31, I saw a news release from James E. Wagner Cultivation (JWCA.V) about a small $2 million loan they’d taken out. The timing of the announcement of their loan was surely not coincidental. Actually, thinking about it, ‘payday loan’ might be the more appropriate term to have used. JVCA took out a debenture financing of $2 million at an interest rate of 25% annually. That’s just the first tranche of the deal; there’s another $8 million out there if they want it. My credit card, abused as it has been, costs me less interest to maintain than JWCA’s loan.
You’ve gotta love it when a plan comes together: 1933 Industries (TGIF.C), which has been banging the same ‘we’re grownups, we’re doing it right, hang tight’ drum for several years now, dropped news this February 14 that will make any Valentine’s heart swell with joy. “Following the completion of a combined 20,000-square-foot expanded cultivation, extraction, manufacturing and distribution facility in the Los Angeles area, the company began harvesting its first cannabis crop this week to be utilized for both its proprietary brand Alternative Medicine Association (AMA), as well as for its licensing partner luxury brand Blonde cannabis, with products earmarked for dispensaries for the first time outside of Nevada.”
Ontario-based Supreme Cannabis (FIRE.T) released its Q2 2020 financials today and there were few surprises contained in its pages, bar perhaps the size of the quarterly loss. At a $17.3 million net loss after taxes (and a $10.4 million loss in adjusted EBITDA terms), FIRE shares fell in value below the $0.40 mark it’s been hovering around for some time, a 5% drop in real terms. Previous quarters had seen smaller losses, even come close to break even. But even the rosiest-eyed fanboy would have expected these numbers to be rough, considering the CEO change and staff layoffs announced earlier in the year. We predicted as much a week ago.
The quarterly financials news release just put out by Aurora Cannabis (ACB.T) isn’t exactly hype. It reflects a company coming to grips with the fact
Large Canadian cannabis licensed producer Supreme Cannabis (FIRE.T) told the markets they’re laying off around 30% of their staff today, days before their next quarterly financials are released and with the dust still settling after their recent CEO change. To the casual observer, this might appear to be a sign of desperation, that the sky is falling in Kincardine, Ontario, and the owner of the esteemed 7 Acres brand was making some sort of last ditch effort to stave off Armageddon. It ain’t that.
AMPD Ventures (AMPD.C), which recently topped up its bank account to bring in more sales folks, announced some sales today, with a news release pointing
Alberta-based Aurora Cannabis (ACB.T) took a long trade halt today as it prepared to announce what the online rumour mill had been surmising all day
If you’ve had your eye off the biotech sector recently because it doesn’t directly involve gold or cannabis, you’re missing out on one of the
BC-based battery metals developer Nano One Materials (NNO.V) has long been a favourite at Equity.Guru – in fact, it’s been the stock we’ve held longest
If you guys can’t spot a bubble by now, what day in February did you start trading exactly? Tesla (TSLA.Q) stock has been on a nutty run lately, climbing from the $200 range in October to $969 yesterday. Or, rather ‘..to $969, 15 minutes before the end of trading today.’
A year ago, if you’d told me a rare earths explorer was going to be a three-bagger through tax loss season, I’d have called you
Xphyto (XPHY.C) is dominating the cannabis sector like Sean Kemp used to dominate the Seattle buffet scene. It’s a legit beast right now, jumping from
The giant sports entertainment promoter and one-time pro-wrestling monopoly, World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE.NYSE), hit hard times this past week, as senior management positions unexpectedly opened
Three months ago, I wrote about a drone company called Draganfly (DFLY.C), which had just landed on the exchange as a newly listed public company.
You hate to see it, but such is life in the mining game; little Hawkeye Gold and Diamond (HAWK.V), which may be a misnomer because
From the day it landed on the stock market, MedMen (MMEN.C) was a company that drew derision and ire based almost entirely on the decision
It never ceases to amaze me how folks prefer to get their trade order in before doing their research, even on companies dripping in debt,
All the signs were there: A long awaited move to production, a long period of silence broken with news, a financing near the 52-week low
I love it when a plan comes together. I especially love it when so-called ‘analysts’ who move furniture for a living and buy stock in
When a stock that couldn’t get arrested for most of the last year suddenly nearly doubles in a single day, you’d expect to find some
Way way waaaay back, when Equity.Guru was a young pup and the cannabis industry was still being built on fumes of promise, Vivo Cannabis (VIVO.V)
If Equity.Guru had a wall of shame in our fine sea foam blue offices, Namaste would be on it, along with Wayland Group (WAYL.C), CEN
Last night, Vancouver’s tech elite were crowded into the Waterfall Building, off Granville Island, enjoying cocktails, tasty vittles and, most importantly, tours of AMPD Ventures’
I’ve been to about a decade of Vancouver Resource Investment Conferences, the big Cambridge House BC mining convention that runs every year around this time
When a cannabis company loses a lot of money every quarter, and has to sell real estate, cancel acquisitions, lay off staff, renegotiate existing financing
Sick of hearing about how cannabis companies are ‘on the cusp of something great’ and ‘leading the industry’? Well Experion’s new CEO has gone another way: Truth.
The bodies of cannabis company CEOs are starting float down river. Honey, the CEOs ain’t the problem. Name one weed company CEO any other company would hire… I’ll wait.
Like the old Twilight Zone episode where helpful aliens leave behind a book called ‘To Serve Man’, only for us to find out later it’s a cookbook, investors have been welcomed and fattened up nicely by alpha predators as they unwittingly await their slaughter, not realizing that, they’re at the predator’s table because they’re the main course.
No resource, no multi-million dollar raise, no problem.
Ceylon Graphite (CYL.V), which has taken the unusual (in mining circles) decision to just freaking start digging, rather than go through eight years of behind-protection, triangulation, and capital raising first, is up 20% today as the first containers fill with graphite and execs chase down end user agreements.
With stock selling for just $0.06 a few days ago, volume has increased and buyers are being found, leading the stock to $0.095 at the time of writing.
With the twitter announcement this morning that Jeanette had “happily” left the position of CEO at Beleave Kannabis (BE.C), Equity.Guru’s own Chris Parry was chomping at the bit to find out just what “happily” meant for the market and investors. Twenty minutes after making her announcement, VanderMarel phoned up Chris to give him the skinny on her decision as well as some explanations for past actions which gave both industry players and investors some pause.
Close-ology is a mining term used to describe companies that are close to another company that is running red hot, and may justifiably make the case that they can be hot too.
For some, like serial ring-staker Ryan Kalt, close-ology is a business model. The moment someone announces they’ve found something interesting in Dildo, Newfoundland or Punkydoodle Corners, Ontario, Kalt’s crew hops on their laptops, busts out the credit card, and register claims all around it, sometimes without ever having walked the land.
One of the things that pisses a lot of investors off about the resource sector is, the confluence of events most investors are looking for – revenues in and a smaller amount of expenses out – you know, ‘actually doing business’ – rarely occurs, because so few resource deals ever move into actual production.
If you’ve been around this joint for a while, you’ll have seen us arguing folks would be silly to invest in MedMen (MMEN.C) if hanging on to your money is a thing you aspire to do.
That’s not because we have a hate on for the dude-bros running the show, or because they’re not a client, or because we’re short sellers, or any of the other 50 or so reasons MedMen homers have thrown at us over the last few years as a rationale for us not seeing the company in the same rose-coloured way they do.
It’s because MedMen is, and has always been, shit.
Technology public markets newbie AMPD Ventures (AMPD.C) has had an interesting first 7 weeks on the market, initially doubling in value out of the gate,
50 years I’ve been bumbling around this planet, and the best damn weekend I’ve had on it to date occurred recently, under the influence of
Not sure what took them so long, but there’s a new CEO at Canopy Growth Corp (WEED.T), and he’s exactly what we thought he’d be;
Dionymed Brands (DYME.C) is – sorry, was – the low hanging fruit of the cannabis bubble burst. It was always a goner for anyone who
Isracann BioSciences (IPOT) is the first pure pot play growing in the Promised Land. You may not think this middle east nation state is a
Over the last month I’ve left the happy confines of Casa Guru a few times and headed out to the suburbs to catch up with
Web 3.0 is still being defined but experts believe it will create a deeply indexed information superhighway not only serving its users with a unique
The partnership between Emerald Health (EMH.V) and Village Farms (VFF.V) was never going to be smooth sailing, glittery rainbows, and under-taint kisses until the end
Beleaguered Canadian cannabis company Beleave (BE.C) just posted financials after the close of trading on a Friday, which is, as we well know, ‘Friday news
AMPD Ventures (AMPD.C) CEO Anthony Brown told a reporter yesterday he was looking to raise money for acquisitions and growth, with a $2 million raise
Regular readers will know I’ve been a little quiet of late on the cannabis space, which is by design. If I’m not going in full
Ringing the bell to signal the start of trading at the stock exchange is a time honoured tradition for executives at newly-listed public companies. It
The Father Daughter Dance at West Vancouver country club Hollyburn is usually a fairly tame affair, where the city’s well-to-do dress up, eat steak, and
“Resources are coming!” is the yell heard at every Howe Street watering hole lately, and has been for several months. As cannabis bleeds out like
Logistics is not hot. Nobody is telling their assistant, “Bring me the hottest trucking deals out there, I have a hundred grand burning a hole
My favourite thing is when a company says ‘we’re going to do a thing,’ and then a few weeks later they announced that thing actually
Listen up, true believers – Canopy Growth Corp (WEED.T) will not be rewarding your love any time soon. This isn’t news, obviously. We’ve told you
This morning, a North American drone company that has decades of experience in the business announced word that a former White House Chief of Staff
When cannabis companies first appeared on Canadian public markets, it was all about cultivation, the bigger the land package, the higher the market cap. Didn’t
“Fiscal 2019 was a transformative year for Medmen, with over two million completed retail transactions to date and revenues increasing 227% year-over-year,” said Adam Bierman,
A while back – quite a while back, if we’re honest, Tinley Beverage (TNY.C) boss Jeff Maser had a big decision to make that would
Of all the stupid, tin-eared, extended news releases I’ve seen posted on a Monday morning, I’ve rarely seen one as stupid, tin-eared and extended as
As a general rule, I’m against any company with ‘cann’ or ‘canna’ in its title. You could make a drinking game out of reading the
For the last few years, if cannabis companies wanted money, there was a long line of folks happy to oblige. More recently, those financiers have
