The following post was written and/or published as a collaboration between Benzinga’s in-house sponsored content team and a financial partner of Benzinga.

The final weeks of 2020 brought a host of market-shaking headlines. However, one major headline only  received a brief moment of scrutiny before getting subsumed by news of federal stimulus and COVID-19 updates, and that was the landmark congressional vote on decriminalizing marijuana on a federal level.

Although the motion, which passed the House of Representatives along party lines, is not expected to survive a vote in the Senate, the measure still represents a monumental sea change for the domestic cannabis markets and those stocks with exposure to it.

While navigating the array of publicly-traded cannabis companies may seem like a daunting task, A.I.-enabled tools and predictive analysis like those from stock research platform VantagePoint can aid in discovering promising candidates for cannabis traders.

Legalization Fuels Speculation

Obviously, the most potentially impactful x-factor for cannabis this year is the federal legalization bill currently awaiting its day in the Senate. And while the current demographics of the chamber don’t bode well for the measure, this week’s Georgia runoff elections look likely of flipping the chamber in favor of the more cannabis-friendly democratic party, which has a narrow chance of improving the odds for the bill.

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Expectation For Consolidation

However, it’s not simply the big names that are looking to the new year for new growth opportunities, as many speciality or regional growers are combining or being acquired in anticipation of a more robust U.S. cannabis market.

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That follows a string of announced M&A through the previous year, including Cresco Labs Inc. (OTC:CRLBF) acquisition of Origin House and Jushi Holdings (OTC:JUSHF)  acquisition of Pennsylvania-based grower Vireo Health International, to name a few.

Federal legalization or now, traders should anticipate more consolidation throughout the fragmented domestic cannabis as multi-state operators look to enter state-level markets.

And while the exact course of these deals may be unclear at the moment, traders can look to VantagePoint’s predictive analysis for greater insight into the prevailing cannabis market trends.