Cannabis stocks continued to sell off Monday toward new lows, fueling an increase in bearish bets on the sector. The ETFMG Alternative Harvest ETF MJ, -3.26% dropped 2.8% toward a record low, and were headed for a third-straight decline, and 10th drop in 11 sessions.
The ETF has plunged 17% over the past 11 sessions. Ihor Dusaniwsky, managing director of predictive analytics at financial analytics company S3 Partners, said he’s witnessed and “overall increase in shares shorted,” to bring short interest as a percent of float to 16.94% for the top 20 most shorted cannabis stocks, compared with 11.48% for the overall domestic equity market.
Of the companies with the highest value of of short interest outstanding, shares of Canopy Growth Corp. CGC, -3.78% WEED, -3.83% fell 4.5%, Aurora Cannabis Inc. ACB, -4.98% ACB, -4.90% dropped 4.6%, GW Pharmaceuticals PLC GWPH, -1.19% lost 1.3%, Cronos Group CRON, -1.04% CRON, -0.91% gave up 2.0% and Tilray Inc. TLRY, -4.63% shed 3.9%. The cannabis ETF has tumbled 34% over the past three months, amid concerns over regulatory uncertainty and disappointing sales, while the S&P 500 SPX, +0.50% has gained 1.4%
