Market Morning: Cannabis Legalization Progress, Brexit Burn, MMT Mocked, Boeing Grounded

ME Staff - finance.yahoo.com Posted 5 years ago

New Jersey To Become 11th State To Legalize Recreational Marijuana? Israel, Too

Lots of movement on the cannabis legalization front today, both in the United States and abroad. In New Jersey, Governor Phil Murphy has reached an agreement with Democratic legislators to legalize recreational marijuana in the state. Murphy is a Democrat and friend of legalization. “Legalizing adult-use marijuana is a monumental step to reducing disparities in our criminal justice system,” he said. As usual, “health officials,” police, and “educators” are against the move.

SEE: Cannabis Stock News Daily Roundup March 12

In the Middle East, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has voiced support for legalizing marijuana recreationally in an attempt to woo the stoner vote.  Netanyahu’s Likud party is trailing in electoral polls behind the new Blue White party that just came into existence this election. Israel is already a big medical marijuana exporter. Israeli elections are being held on April 9.

Up in Canada, TransCanna (TCAN) has raised $10 million in a brokered private placement to fund the purchase of a 196,000 square foot cannabis facility, in addition to signing a letter of intent to purchase a 15,000 square foot facility in California, announced last month.  The stock is up 66% since trading commenced in January.

Meanwhile the Alternative Harvest ETF (NYSEARCA:MJ) is up 51% since December, pretty much following the momentum of the S&P 500, and the Canadian Horizons Marijuana Life Sciences ETF (HMMJ) is up 58% over the same time frame.

Britain to Slash Tariffs to Zero In Event of No Deal Brexit

After British Prime Minister Theresa May’s soft Brexit deal failed to pass parliament for a second time yesterday, the prospect of no deal has risen again. Parliament will be voting on whether to reject no deal in favor of an extension to Article 50 today. In the event that no deal is not rejected, or if the European Union bureaucratic machine refuses to grant the UK an extension, the no deal will take effect by default. If that happens, May’s government has promised to slash tariffs to zero on 87% of imports to the UK from non-EU sources, with the exception of meat and dairy because farmers can’t do without their protection, supposedly. The pound (NYSEARCA:FXB) is up against the dollar and the euro by half a percent since yesterday, on the hopes that no deal will be ruled out. British newspapers are going bananas and everyone is getting tired of these games, except the politicians, who are all having a great time in the spotlight.

Gundlach Calls MMT Crackpot Idea For First Graders

In an insult to first graders who usually tend to understand the realities of scarcity in planet Earth, Doubleline founder and CEO Jeff Gundlach has called Modern Monetary Theory, or MMT as its proponents call it, a crackpot idea for first graders. In case he wasn’t clear enough, he added that it was “complete nonsense”. The idea of MMT is that public deficits don’t matter and you can keep printing money forever because the moon is made of cheese and we can just sell the cheese to Jupiter, which is totally loaded because it’s really big. The real idea of MMT though is actually only slightly less insane than that, which is that as long as the Federal Reserve can keep interest rates low without sparking inflation, the national debt and budget deficit won’t be an issue. Which is technically true, though along similar lines of thought, as long as you can survive without breathing, suffocation won’t be an issue either.

Boeing 737 Max 8 Grounded In The Following Countries

Here’s a list for Boeing (NYSE:BA) watchers brought to you by Bloomberg. The airplane maker is going to have to do something about this. The stock is down 13% since the Ethiopian Airlines crash:  Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Ethiopia, Fiji, South Korea , Mexico, Mongolia, Morocco, Russia, South Africa, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, China, Croatia, Cyprus, Czechia, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hong Kong, Hungary, Iceland, India, Indonesia, Ireland, Italy, Kuwait, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malaysia, Malta, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Oman, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Singapore, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, and Vietnam.

In the United States, the aircraft is still considered safe, but nobody knows exactly why other than the FAA said so.

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