Hold onto your Aurora Cannabis stock, this investor says

Like the rest of the pot stocks, Aurora Cannabis (Aurora Cannabis Stock Quote, Chart: TSX:ACB) hit its highs back in January, only to tumble almost as quickly in February while trading sideways ever since.

Not a surprise, says Elliott Fishman of Scotia Wealth, who says that none of the moves so far in the cannabis space make much sense and that we’ll have to wait for the reality of rec legalization before some level of rationality takes hold.

This week, Aurora announced its third quarter fiscal 2018 financials, posting revenue of $16.1 million, a 211 per cent increase over last year’s Q3, to go along with a net loss of $20.8 million.

CEO Terry Booth says the company’s revenue growth has been exceptional, even before Aurora’s ambitious expansion plans are brought to fruition.

“More than tripling our revenues year-over-year demonstrates that Aurora continues to execute consistently on its growth strategy, with exceptional performance across all functions, both in Canada and internationally,” he says in a press release. “It’s worth noting that Aurora’s industry-leading revenue growth since starting commercial operations has thus far been driven predominantly by the output of a single production facility, Aurora Mountain, supported by differentiation into additional revenue streams. With production underway at Aurora Vie and Aurora Sky, yield enhancements being implemented at CanniMed, and significant new capacity coming online through 2018, we are targeting further, accelerated growth in subsequent quarters.”

But all that promise of cannabis crops yet to be grown, harvested and sold doesn’t make for a lot of security. Fishman says the newness of the industry should be acting as a red flag for investors.

“Who’s to say what’s going to happen? It’s still so infancy, here right now, and I’m just afraid of stocks like this. I play them for very short term,” says Fishman, director of US and International trading at the Trading Services Group at Scotia Wealth, in conversation with BNN Bloomberg.

“These stocks have moved so much so quickly to the point where everything is going to have to work out perfectly for them to get back to those levels again. There was no reason for the run-up and there really is no reason for the pullbacks,” he says.

Aurora Cannabis recently announced it had upped its stake in Alberta retail liquor store company Alcanna (formerly Liquor Stores NA) from 19.5 per cent to 25 per cent, with the company aiming to install about 50 retail cannabis stores across western Canada.

“[Aurora] has had a big run and now you’re seeing common sense bringing it back. If I owned it, I’d continue to own it here,” says Fishman.