Kevin O’Leary, star of ABC’s Shark Tank and chairman of O’Shares ETFs, is steering clear of investing in marijuana and cannabis stocks.
On a segment of Yahoo Finance this week, O’Leary said there were several reasons he wouldn’t be investing in cannabis.
“As an institutional investor I don’t touch this space and I don’t because it’s a Schedule 1 Narcotic – even cocaine isn’t a Schedule 1 narcotic,” O’Leary said. “But marijuana and CBDs are. So as an issuer of securities, someone who plays the markets institutionally, I don’t even have an option to look at this. I’m not an investor nor are 99% of institutional investors, so this is very much a retail phenomenon.”
Looking at the industry long-term, O’Leary said cannabis is “a total commodity no different than tobacco or vodka or anything else like that.”