The daily business briefing: January 3, 2018

Marijuana stocks jump after California starts pot sales, the Trump administration blocks Chinese firm's plan to buy MoneyGram, and more

A medical marijuana dispensary in Los Angeles
(Image credit: Getty Images)

1. Marijuana stocks soar after legal sales start in California

Marijuana stocks surged on Tuesday in the first day of trading in 2018, a day after California legalized retail sales. California started permitting recreational pot use for people ages 21 and up on New Year's Day, creating the largest marijuana market in the country. Customers lined up outside dispensaries. A new marijuana exchange-traded fund, ETFMG Alternative Harvest ETF, shot up by 9 percent, putting it up by 18 percent over a week. Its Canadian counterpart, Horizons Marijuana Life Sciences ETF, jumped by 12 percent. Medreleaf gained the most, rising 29 percent, while Aurora Cannabis rose by 24 percent and Emerald Health Therapeutics by 20 percent.

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Harold Maass, The Week US

Harold Maass is a contributing editor at The Week. He has been writing for The Week since the 2001 debut of the U.S. print edition and served as editor of TheWeek.com when it launched in 2008. Harold started his career as a newspaper reporter in South Florida and Haiti. He has previously worked for a variety of news outlets, including The Miami Herald, ABC News and Fox News, and for several years wrote a daily roundup of financial news for The Week and Yahoo Finance.