‘You’re going to lose all of your money’: Money manager warns against investing in cannabis

As provinces continue to roll out their recreational cannabis plans, one portfolio manager is warning against investing in the hot sector.

“This is like a frenzy – the likes we haven’t seen since the dot-com bubble,” Barry Schwartz, chief investment officer and portfolio manager at Baskin Wealth Management, told BNN in an interview Friday, acknowledging the increased interest in the space among his clients.

“You’re going to lose all of your money if you invest in these companies.”

Alberta and Quebec were the latest provinces to table their cannabis legislations Thursday as the country prepares for the recreational use of the drug to become legal at the federal level in July 2018.

Investors have been flocking to the shares in Canada’s cannabis companies. Shares of Aurora Cannabis Inc. (ACB.TO), for instance, have nearly doubled in the past month as investors speculate on the future growth prospects of the medical marijuana supplier. Other cannabis stocks have been posting double-digit growth in the value of their stocks in recent months.

But Schwartz doesn’t see the industry being a big money-maker or growth area.

“At the end of the day, I see marijuana being a $2-billion sales a year [industry] in Canada at most,” he said. “This is not an industry with a gigantic runway of growth or opportunity here.”

“People who smoke marijuana smoke it already,” Schwartz added. “It’s not like this is going to explode going forward – so I would run away.”