Cannabis company stocks are skyrocketing as investors are high on new hopes that marijuana might help ward off the deadly coronavirus.
Shares in major pot firms climbed in late trading Thursday after The Post reported on a Canadian study showing that certain strains of cannabis may help prevent COVID-19 from entering host cells.
Canadian pot giant Canopy Growth Corporation saw its stock jump 7.8 percent to close at $18.25 thanks to a spike in the final hour of trading. The shares had climbed another 0.5 percent in premarket trading Friday to $18.34 as of 9:19 a.m.
British Columbia-based Tilray’s shares also surged late to close up nearly 20 percent at $9.65, followed by a roughly 2 percent jump before Friday’s opening bell.
The ETFMG Alternative Harvest ETF, an exchange-traded fund that targets the global cannabis industry, ended Thursday up 6 percent at $13.47 and climbed another 1.3 percent in premarket trading Friday.
And shares in Alberta-based Aurora Cannabis got a late boost to close up more than 36 percent Thursday at $17.40 after it announced it was buying American CBD firm Reliva. The stock was recently down 7.4 percent in premarket trading after Jefferies analysts reportedly cast doubt on the company’s short-term strength.
The research inspiring the boost showed that at least 13 cannabis plants could block proteins that create a “gateway” for the new coronavirus to enter host cells. The strains are all high in CBD — the anti-inflammatory found in some consumer products — and low in THC, the psychoactive component of pot, according to the findings.
But the study published in the online journal Preprints has not yet been peer-reviewed. It was carried out by cannabis research firms Pathway Rx and Swysh Inc.
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By Noah Manskar for NYPost