Wall Street Breakfast Podcast: Weed Stocks Light Up

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Cannabis stocks rally after Trump posts video touting CBD use for senior healthcare. (00:25) YouTube (GOOG) (GOOGL) to pay Trump $24.5M for suspending account after Capitol riot. (02:01) McDonald’s (MCD) bets on Monopoly game to lure in loyalty members. (03:15)

This is an abridged transcript.

Cannabis stocks moved sharply higher on Monday after President Trump publicly endorsed the use of cannabidiol (CBD) for senior healthcare.

The president posted a video on his Truth Social account from the Commonwealth Project that highlighted CBD’s potential to “revolutionize senior healthcare” by slowing the progression of diseases and providing alternatives to prescription drugs.

Shares of leading cannabis firms, including Tilray Brands (NASDAQ:TLRY), Canopy Growth (NASDAQ:CGC), Cronos Group (NASDAQ:CRON), Aurora Cannabis (NASDAQ:ACB), and related ETFs rose by double digits following the announcement.

U.S.-listed shares of Canopy Growth (NASDAQ:CGC) gained ~17% on Monday, Tilray Brands (NASDAQ:TLRY) jumped as much as 60%, Cronos Group (NASDAQ:CRON) added 13% and Aurora Cannabis (NASDAQ:ACB) scaled 28%.

Besides AdvisorShares Pure U.S. Cannabis ETF (NYSEARCA:MSOS), which tracks U.S.-listed cannabis stocks, Amplify Alternative Harvest ETF (NYSEARCA:MJ) gained more than 26%.

Other U.S. and Canadian cannabis companies, including Green Thumb Industries (OTCQX:GTBIF), Curaleaf Holdings (OTCPK:CURLF), and Trulieve (OTCQX:TCNNF), also saw considerable gains.

The video posted by Trump highlighted cannabidiol use for reducing pain and stress, improving sleep, and helping deal with health issues, including cancer symptoms and Alzheimer’s. The three-minute video has a Fox News segment outlining the financial advantages of legalizing marijuana for medical purposes. It says that this would amount to cost savings of “$64 billion a year if cannabis is fully integrated into the healthcare system.”

YouTube (NASDAQ:GOOG) (NASDAQ:GOOGL) has agreed to pay $24.5M to settle a 2021 lawsuit filed by President Trump after his account was suspended following the January 6 Capitol riot.

YouTube suspended Trump’s channel after the riot, saying it had removed videos that violated its policies against content that could incite violence.

The platform reinstated his channel in March 2023.

The settlement makes YouTube, owned by Alphabet’s Google, the final Big Tech company to settle a trio of lawsuits brought against social media platforms in the months after Trump left the White House.

The Wall Street Journal previously reported, in January, Meta Platforms (META) agreed to pay $25M, most of it to a fund for Trump’s presidential library, and X agreed to pay $10M, much of it going directly to the president.

Trump’s share of the settlement is $22M, which will go to the nonprofit Trust for the National Mall. Funds from that will be used for the construction of a $200M Mar-a-Lago-style ballroom at the White House, the report said, citing the court documents.

The report said the remaining $2.5M will go to the other plaintiffs in the case, a group that includes the American Conservative Union and writer Naomi Wolf.

McDonald’s (NYSE:MCD) is bringing back its popular Monopoly game (HAS) for a limited time on October 6 giving customers the opportunity to win vehicles, vacations, and even $1 million.

The new Monopoly game won’t feature the traditional physical paper board. Rather, game pieces peeled off food packages can be scanned into the game app for registered members of the McDonald’s (NYSE:MCD) loyalty program. If all pieces of a Monopoly property are collected, customers can redeem for prizes including airline miles, a Jeep Grand Cherokee (STLA) and $1 million in cash.

The game was first introduced in 1987 and last released in the U.S. in 2016 as “Money Monopoly.”

By reintroducing the game after a nearly 10-year hiatus, CEO Chris Kempczinski hopes to draw customers to the company’s loyalty program.

“Roughly a quarter of our business in the US is from our loyalty program,” Kempczinski said during McDonald’s (NYSE:MCD) recent earnings call with analysts.

With a goal of 250M global active loyalty members by the end of 2027, McDonald’s (NYSE:MCD) has reached three-quarters of that goal so far.

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Catalyst watch:

• Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN) will hold a hardware reveal event. The showcase is expected to spotlight a new wave of Echo smart speakers, Fire TV devices, and Kindle e-readers, all designed to leverage the upgraded Alexa Plus AI assistant.

Dow, S&P and Nasdaq futures are in the red. Crude oil is down 1% at $62/barrel. Bitcoin is down 1.1% at $113,000. Gold is down 0.8% at $3,802.

The FTSE 100 is down 0.1% and the DAX is flat.

The biggest movers for the day premarket: Firefly Aerospace (NASDAQ:FLY) -12% – Shares dropped after the booster stage of an Alpha rocket exploded during a pre-flight test in Texas. The company confirmed all personnel were safe and proper safety protocols were followed.

On today’s economic calendar:

• 9:00 am Boston Federal Reserve Bank President Susan Collins will give brief remarks and participate in a moderated question-and-answer session before the Council on Foreign Relations C. Peter McColough Series on International Economics.

• 10:00 am JOLTS

• 1:30 pm Chicago Federal Reserve Bank President Austan Goolsbee will participate in a moderated question-and-answer session before the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago Midwest Agriculture Conference: Midwest Agriculture and Trade Uncertainty.

• 7:10 pm Dallas Federal Reserve Bank President Lorie Logan will participate in a conversation moderated by Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas Vice President Pia Orrenius before the Dallas Fed Survey Participants’ Appreciation Reception.

Editor’s Note: This article discusses one or more securities that do not trade on a major U.S. exchange. Please be aware of the risks associated with these stocks.