00:00 Speaker A

Now time for some of today’s trending tickers. We are watching cannabis stocks, Aventor and Almoral. First up, shares of cannabis stocks are higher. President Trump is reportedly weighing classifying marijuana as a less dangerous drug. That’s according to the Wall Street Journal. The president reportedly told donors privately that he was considering reclassifying marijuana as a schedule three drug. That would ease some restrictions and allow marijuana companies to qualify for certain tax breaks. Still with me is Yahoo Finance Senior Reporter Brooke DiPalma. Now, this is something that the Biden administration had floated. It’s something that had been rumored here, but we haven’t really heard much about it for a while until this report.

00:57 Brooke DiPalma

Yeah, there’s a report from the Wall Street Journal. And this would be an ongoing momentum that we heard the Biden administration trying to start to pursue, but ultimately it didn’t go into fruition by the time he had left office. And this would allow these companies to ultimately make more profit. This would allow this reignite, reignition, I guess you could say of these weed stocks, and that certainly has investors really, really excited here. You know, we have MJ moving higher, we have Tilray moving higher, but if you take a closer look at the YF interactive, I also have that up as well. We’re seeing excitement around canopy growth, that stock up nearly 15%. We also have ultimately general cannabis also moving higher. But keep in mind, this is a sector that has been underperforming over the last five years quite significantly, after it was so hot going into 2020. It’s extremely hot going into 2019. And now we’ve seen this major sell off over the past five years, as there hasn’t been much of momentum or drivers rather, to get this market excited. And so the idea that this could reignite excitement, the idea that this could ultimately allow, you know, further profitability for these companies. They’ve reached a bit of a standstill. That has these investors excited and seeing probably the most action that we’ve seen in quite a while.

03:03 Speaker A

Yeah, although short of full legalization, it’s unclear what effect this exactly would have. So, um, it’ll be interesting to follow it and see what ends up happening. Um, also on our trending ticker list, let’s talk about activist investor Engine Capital, confirming it has taken a 3% stake in medical equipment maker Aventor. In a letter to the company’s Board of Directors, Engine Capital said it believes leadership has played a role in some of the company’s struggles, and they wrote that leadership quote, failed to adequately oversee the company’s operations, management, capital allocation, and succession planning. So those shares on that getting a pop here of 6%, Brooke.

04:11 Brooke DiPalma

Yeah, year to date, though important to note here that stock is down more than 40% according to Yahoo Finance tools here. And we’re well off the high of $27 per share. Now we’re about $12.22. And according to a note from Evercore, that analyst there are saying that Engine Capital makes some good points here, particularly on that poor capital allocation. They also went on to say they believe that issues that the company currently has are quote unquote, fixable, and they see no reason for Aventor to underperform peers. But of course, that it has once again, on the on year-to-date, it’s down more than 40%, and compared to a year ago, it’s down more than 50%. And so that company is certainly struggling to keep up with the momentum that we’ve seen others play out as well.

05:32 Speaker A

And finally, let’s talk about US-based Almoral. Those shares are higher after a battery producer, cattle, in China, confirmed it will suspend production of lithium from a mine in China after its permit expired. Now shares are rallying on expectations that prices of lithium will rise as a result of this lower production. According to Morgan Stanley, that Chinese mine produces about 4% of global supply. This has been a really interesting story to follow today. Apparently there had been some concerns on the part of Chinese authorities about overcapacity of lithium in China. And so this might be one of the reasons that this is happening, but you do see that ripple effect around the globe, Brooke.

06:41 Brooke DiPalma

Yes, certainly we’re seeing that effect hit this stock as well. And keep in mind, this company has had some momentum going into this latest announcement, or rather tailwind that has brought to it. On August 4th, we saw that Deutsche Bank raised its price target from $65 to $74. And that certainly gained some momentum as well. The stock now is up more than or nearly 17% in the last month alone, after it had quite the run year-to-date down more than 3.5%, and it’s up about just 1% on the year. But heading into this announcement, we are seeing some optimism among the street on what exactly this could mean. But keep in mind, this is a company that has 15 holds, 11 buys, and about five sells. So there’s certainly is mixed feelings about where exactly this company could lead to. But ultimately, on this report, it’s up now about 9%.

08:05 Speaker A

Yes, thanks so much, Brooke. Appreciate it. You can scan the QR code below to track the best and worst performing stocks with Yahoo Finance’s Trending Tickers page.