Insights: Canadian insiders lead us to opportunity in America

One of the great things about letting the insiders guide us to opportunity is we never know where they are going to take us. Over the past week or so, a popular destination spot has been America where they have their sights set on the marijuana industry. US cannabis stocks have been rallying after Joe Biden and the Democrats took control of both the White House and the Congress in early January. Insiders have been sending us confirming signals that the industry is indeed ripe with opportunity. 

Our morning reports of January 11th, 19th and 22nd all focus on US multi-state operators that have hit our screens. We also had a timely Real Vision interview where Tony Greer interviewed Jason Wild of JW Asset Management and board chairman of TerrAscend (TER) on the state of the North American cannabis industry. Jason was an early investor in the Canadian industry but now his focus is in the United States where he sees some tempting growth opportunities. The interview is our video of the week. It is a must-watch for anyone interested in the cannabis space.

Ayr Strategies was the first US multi-state cannabis operator featured in the morning report back on Feb. 13, 2020

Raoul Pal paid us another visit on Friday when he explained his rationale for staying bullish on bonds. However, he is waiting for two-year US yields to break below 0.10% before he gets too excited about the prospects for the next big move. In the meantime, he is focused on cryptocurrency. In the interview, he provides us with his thoughts on the recent pullback in Bitcoin as well as the relationship between it and Ethereum. He gives us some ideas about how to deal with the plethora of alternative coins (altcoins).

The challenge with being bearish is knowing when the tide will turn. On that front, we will keep Raoul's idea about watching the two-year Treasurys in mind. Meanwhile, we will focus on our core investment themes, particularly those that we expect will play out over many years. Marijuana stocks in the US fit nicely with our G-economy theme as their growth is dependent on governments continuing to act favourably towards them.

This week, we also saw our #2 theme of improvisation and innovation show up in our January 20th morning report which featured VersaBank (VB). We have written about this stock many times and we believe investors are ignoring a disrupter. Not only is its point-of-sale financing now being targetted to the housing market, but the company is also looking to bring its technology to the US market.

Finally, we published our INK Edge Top Movers for the week in the #stock_ideas channel which includes Venture-listed technology stock that already has a market cap north of $2 bilion as well as a mining stock that may be of interest to contrarian investors. If you have not registered for INK Chat yet, Canadian Insider Club members should check their inbox for an invitation or contact us to have it resent.

Disclosure: One or more INK employees holds Ayr Strategies.