It seems like they are losing steam.  One of the big short sellers is on record saying now is the best time to short them etc.  All of that is just fine, but here is my question.  Why do people assume they will make a killing?  I am hoping someone can explain the metrics to me because it seems like people are treating them like tech or bio-tech companies where they can just burn cash and then will be massively profitable.  To me, they are a pure agriculture play.  They require a long time from stem to dispensary, during that time they require massive amounts of energy and additional overhead, once they are ready to go they have plenty of security risks, there is little to no IP, there is no commodity market to hedge prices, Banks in the US don't want the money because the Feds will crush them....it seems like it all adds up to pretty thin margins once you hash out all of the factors that are involved with a legit grow business.

Am I totally off base?  I mean obviously drug dealers have been making money with it for a long time, but the factors are different.  The big ones are in climates where it can grow without massive amounts of electricity/equipment and there aren't things like TAXES and regulations eating into your profits.  I also get how a little guy can have a little grow operation in a basement and make some decent change, but to scale that and make it legit at a level where people are willing to pay 30x+ for companies with profits and prices over $100 per share for some companies with negative earnings....I don't get it.  Once someone creates a brand in that space and becomes the Pepsi of pot and they have their edibles branded....sure.  Until then, I don't see how anyone is justifying the multiples in that space.

So, where is the stoner economist that can make this make sense to me?

No expert at all but some things, they can shorten the grow cycle, they use clones so costs are low on reproducing. In IL a bank in Springfield supposedly let's them deposit with IL blessing?

There are a few really good documentaries on the industry on Amazon Prime and Netflix for free. Some very interesting questions from venture capitalist. They have a clone of Shark Tank for Pot companies.

Those and the Hemp docs and Medical MJ docs are all eye openers in many directions, pro and con.

Nice.  I will check those out.  I know nothing about the cloning stuff that you are referring to so that alone will be interesting.

Theres a 4 or 5 pages thread on the first page of this subforum. Tons of information there.

I saw that, and a lot of your posts, but it is mostly people discussing speculative trend trading.  I am hoping that I can find something that actually breaks down the metrics for profitability on one of these grow businesses.  Someone sort of touched on my point in that the black market business is going to be drastically more profitable than a legal business, but they didn't go into any detail on how much a company can actually make on a plant.

Get in Seeking Alpha and look at their balance sheets?