Weed stocks chill out

Cannabis stocks are notoriously volatile. On Aug. 1, 2018, Tilray — a Canadian company that calls itself "one of the largest and most sophisticated producers of premium medical cannabis in the world" — was worth $1.66 billion.

By the numbers: A mere 35 trading days later, on Sept. 20, it was worth $16.37 billion. Today, it's worth $3.3 billion.

Look past the day-to-day volatility in individual stocks, however, and a bigger picture appears: The marijuana sector as a whole, as valued on mostly Canadian stock exchanges, is not only enormous but pretty stable in size.

• The 8 largest companies, collectively worth $39 billion today, have been worth somewhere between $36 billion and $44 billion pretty much all year.

The bottom line: This might well be a bubble. But if it is, we've moved past the get-rich-quick stage. Pot valuations aren't soaring any longer — but they're not declining, either.

Go deeper:

• Special report: Weed, Inc.
• Leaf inequality
• Dude, where's my cash?

Correction: The chart at the top of this story previously misidentified one of the cannabis companies. Its name is Curaleaf, not Cura Cannabis.