A Biden victory could open the door for the decriminalization of adult-use marijuana, potential rescheduling and other federal cannabis legislation.
By Wayne Duggan
Heading into Thursday night’s final presidential debate between President Donald Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden, Biden has a commanding lead in most polls and online prediction markets. The stock market has a lot riding on the election outcome, but Sevens Report‘s Tom Essaye said this week three industries in particular could experience some extreme Biden volatility.
The first industry that could get a significant Biden bump is cannabis.
A Biden victory could open the door for the decriminalization of adult-use marijuana, potential rescheduling and other federal cannabis legislation. The direct beneficiaries of this trade would be multi-state operators, but Cantor Fitzgerald said earlier this week Canadian legal cannabis producers could see “collateral benefits” as well.
Traders can pick and choose their favorite MSOs or Canadian LP stocks, or they can bet on Biden by trading the ETFMG Alternative Harvest ETF MJ 0.7%.
The second industry that could get a Biden boost is the battered cruise industry, Essaye said. Not only would the cruise industry benefit from a potential $5 trillion in stimulus in the event of a blue wave election, Essaye said normalization of relations with Cuba could also be a major shot in the arm for cruise stocks like Carnival Corp CCL 4.35% and Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd RCL 3.73%.
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“These stocks are historically cheap, and we believe the cruise industry will return to normal over the coming years, so any announcement about re-opening travel to Cuba would be another positive catalyst for this beleaguered space once business starts to return to normal,” Essaye said.
Finally, Essaye said private prison stocks GEO Group Inc GEO 3.09% and Corecivic Inc CXW 2.41% could find themselves on the short side of the Biden trade.
“[Sen. Kamala] Harris said a Biden administration would eliminate the use of private prisons at the debate last week, and while that was a bit of an exaggeration, the point is that the Biden administration would re-implement an Obama administration policy that would phase out the use of private prisons by the Federal government over the coming years,” Essay said.
Benzinga’s Take: The Biden victory trade is looking pretty good ahead of the debate, with online prediction market PredictIt giving Biden a 64% chance of victory. However, on this day in 2016, PredictIt had the odds of a Hillary Clinton victory at 82%, so investors should be cautious about relying too much on poll numbers and online bookmakers.
