The Weekly Stash: January 13, 2023

This is your weekly stash for the week ending January 13 – Yep it’s Friday the 13th.

This was a big week as the state of Connecticut launched legal adult-use sales. Privately owned Fine Fettle was able to open three stores on the first day. The Botanist owned by Acreage Holdings opened one recreational store in Montville, while Green Thumb Industries opened a Rise Dispensary recreational store in Branford. It was a successful launch with the state reporting that over $250,000 was sold on the first day.

Earnings are just beginning to trickle out. Tilray Brands, Inc.  (Nasdaq: TLRY) reported revenues fell 7% in the fiscal second quarter to $144 million from last year’s $155 million. Revenue also fell sequentially from the previous quarter’s net revenue of $153 million. Tilray also delivered a net loss of $67 million versus last year’s net income of $5.7 million.

Organigram Holdings Inc. (Nasdaq: OGI) (TSX: OGI) reported net revenue of $43.3 million for its first fiscal quarter, up 43% from $30.4 million in the same time period last year. This beat Yahoo Finance’s average analysts’ $30.37 million estimate by more than $10 million. Organigram posted a net income of $6.1 million in the first quarter, versus a net loss of $1.3 million in the same time frame last year. 

The Colorado-based food and cannabis grower urban-gro, Inc. (Nasdaq: UGRO) reported a record backlog entering its 2023 fiscal year and reaffirmed its financial guidance for the fourth quarter of 2022. The company expects to enter 2023 with a record consolidated backlog of around $87 million, a sequential increase of approximately $20 million from the third quarter of 2022’s announcement of $67 million in the backlog.

In state news, Maine’s adult-use marijuana sales almost doubled from 2021 to 2022, as the number of recreational retailers also shot up. The New England state sold $159 million in cannabis last year, up from $82 million in 2021 and the number of licensed retailers increased 20% to more than 110.

Recreational marijuana sales in Illinois finished 2022 with more than $1.5 billion, up 13% from 2021. Total sales in December were the highest of any month at $143.9 million, following a seasonal pattern seen in previous years. But the rate of sales growth, 4% over December 2021, was the slowest this year, reflecting continued pressure on discretionary consumer spending from inflation.

And finally, a new report from the U.S. Sentencing Commission found that Federal cannabis possession charges have fallen dramatically since 2014 from 2172 in 2014 to just 145 last year. Unfortunately, a prior cannabis possession conviction often leads to a longer sentence for other crimes. 

That’s it for this week’s Stash. Markets will be closed on Monday for the Martin Luther King holiday.