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The five years after Canada legalized recreational cannabis have produced enough data for researchers to look at important questions like how organized crime is affected by legalization, or not.

A recent study, published in Sociological Inquiry, explores how the shift to a legal market has reshaped criminal enterprises once heavily involved in the illicit cannabis trade.

Key Findings On Organized Crime & Cannabis

The research, conducted by scientists Martin Bouchard, Naomi Zakimi -of Simon Fraser University-, and Benoît Gomis -of the University of Toronto– shows that the legal cannabis market now dominates in Canada, accounting for over 71% of household expenditures on cannabis as of 2023. However, nearly 29% of the market still belongs to unlicensed sellers.

Some of the study’s most notable findings include:

1. A Shrinking Illicit Market: Legal cannabis sales have steadily increased since legalization, gradually cutting into the black market.
2. Organized Crime’s Resilience: Criminal organizations are adapting, either by diverting legal cannabis into the unlicensed market or shifting their operations to illegal drugs.
3. Consumer Challenges: High prices, inconsistent quality, and limited accessibility in the legal market continue to drive some consumers toward cheaper, unlicensed alternatives.
4. Cross-Border Smuggling: Despite legalization, some unlicensed products are smuggled out of Canada into markets abroad, particularly in the U.S.
5. Shifting Criminal Focus: With cannabis becoming less profitable, many criminal groups are focusing on more dangerous drugs like opioids.

Read Also: Legal Weed = Less Crime: FBI Data Shows Surprising Benefits Of Cannabis Legalization

Methods And Indicators

To draw these conclusions, the researchers conducted a comprehensive review of more than 5,000 sources, including academic papers, media reports and government publications.

The key indicators used to assess the impact of cannabis legalization on organized crime include several metrics, such as price comparison between legal and illicit cannabis markets, supply-demand balance and cash circulation.

Lower legal cannabis prices tend to pull consumers away from illegal sources, so price monitoring is crucial. Cannabis demand estimates and legal supply are also analyzed to measure how well the legal market meets consumption needs, which could reduce reliance on the illicit market. Other indicators include tracking illicit cannabis seizures by law enforcement, examining criminal justice data for organized crime ties and analyzing cash circulation as an indicator of illegal market transactions.

These methods, along with interviews and internal documents, provide a more nuanced understanding of how organized crime has responded to legalization.

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Recommendations For Policy Makers

One key finding is that the link between unlicensed and licensed cannabis is persistent and complex.

“Policies and law enforcement interventions aiming to address the illicit cannabis trade in Canada may indeed have consequences on legal cannabis production, sales, and consumption as well. The legal market may need to compete by learning from the consumer preferences established in the illegal market.”

Thus there’s a need for a comprehensive approach.

“Regulators and politicians would do well to measure expectations: the illegal activities along cannabis supply chains will persist and eliminating them altogether is an unrealistic goal,” the researchers add.

Cover: Courtesy of the California Department of Cannabis Control.

Revealing a significant insider sell on October 17, George Carrara, Board Member at Build-A-Bear Workshop BBW, as per the latest SEC filing.

What Happened: Carrara opted to sell 2,500 shares of Build-A-Bear Workshop, according to a Form 4 filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Thursday. The transaction’s total worth stands at $90,675.

Monitoring the market, Build-A-Bear Workshop‘s shares down by 0.0% at $37.76 during Friday’s morning.

About Build-A-Bear Workshop

Build-A-Bear Workshop Inc is a U.S.-based specialty retailer of customized stuffed animals and related products. The company operates through three segments. Its Direct-to-consumer segment with key revenue, includes the operating activities of corporately-managed locations and other retail delivery operations in the U.S., Canada, China, Denmark, Ireland, and the U.K., including the company’s e-commerce sites and temporary stores. The international franchising segment includes the licensing activities of the company’s franchise agreements with store locations in Europe, Asia, Australia, the Middle East, and Africa. The commercial segment includes the transactions with other businesses, mainly comprised of licensing the intellectual properties for third-party use and wholesale activities.

Build-A-Bear Workshop’s Economic Impact: An Analysis

Revenue Growth: Build-A-Bear Workshop’s revenue growth over a period of 3 months has been noteworthy. As of 31 July, 2024, the company achieved a revenue growth rate of approximately 2.36%. This indicates a substantial increase in the company’s top-line earnings. When compared to others in the Consumer Discretionary sector, the company excelled with a growth rate higher than the average among peers.

Evaluating Earnings Performance:

• Gross Margin: The company maintains a high gross margin of 54.18%, indicating strong cost management and profitability compared to its peers.

• Earnings per Share (EPS): Build-A-Bear Workshop’s EPS is below the industry average. The company faced challenges with a current EPS of 0.64. This suggests a potential decline in earnings.

Debt Management: With a below-average debt-to-equity ratio of 0.81, Build-A-Bear Workshop adopts a prudent financial strategy, indicating a balanced approach to debt management.

Assessing Valuation Metrics:

• Price to Earnings (P/E) Ratio: The Price to Earnings ratio of 10.67 is lower than the industry average, indicating potential undervaluation for the stock.

• Price to Sales (P/S) Ratio: A higher-than-average P/S ratio of 1.1 suggests overvaluation in the eyes of investors, considering sales performance.

• EV/EBITDA Analysis (Enterprise Value to its Earnings Before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation & Amortization): The company’s EV/EBITDA ratio of 7.69 trails industry averages, indicating a potential disparity in market valuation that could be advantageous for investors.

Market Capitalization: With restricted market capitalization, the company is positioned below industry averages. This reflects a smaller scale relative to peers.

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Understanding the Significance of Insider Transactions

Insider transactions contribute to decision-making but should be supplemented by a comprehensive investment analysis.

In legal terms, an “insider” refers to any officer, director, or beneficial owner of more than ten percent of a company’s equity securities registered under Section 12 of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. This can include executives in the c-suite and large hedge funds. These insiders are required to let the public know of their transactions via a Form 4 filing, which must be filed within two business days of the transaction.

When a company insider makes a new purchase, that is an indication that they expect the stock to rise.

Insider sells, on the other hand, can be made for a variety of reasons, and may not necessarily mean that the seller thinks the stock will go down.

Breaking Down the Significance of Transaction Codes

For investors, a primary focus lies on transactions occurring in the open market, as indicated in Table I of the Form 4 filing. A P in Box 3 denotes a purchase, while S signifies a sale. Transaction code C signals the conversion of an option, and transaction code A denotes a grant, award, or other acquisition of securities from the company.

Check Out The Full List Of Build-A-Bear Workshop’s Insider Trades.

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This article was generated by Benzinga’s automated content engine and reviewed by an editor.

Steel Dynamics Inc STLD posted better-than-expected third-quarter earnings, after the closing bell on Wednesday.

Steel Dynamics posted quarterly GAAP earnings of $2.05 per share, beating market estimates of $1.97 per share. The company’s quarterly sales came in at $4.34 billion versus expectations of $4.177 billion.

“The teams achieved a solid third quarter 2024 performance across the platforms, with adjusted EBITDA of $557 million and cash flow from operations of $760 million,” said Mark D. Millett, Co-Founder, Chairman, and Chief Executive Officer. “With our proven through-cycle cash generation, we increased liquidity to $3.1 billion, while also investing $621 million in our internal ongoing growth initiatives and distributing $381 million to our shareholders through cash dividends and share repurchases. Our three-year after-tax return-on-invested capital of 26 percent is a testament to our ongoing high-return capital allocation execution.

Steel Dynamics shares gained 1.2% to trade at $136.70 on Friday.

These analysts made changes to their price targets on Steel Dynamics following earnings announcement.

• BMO Capital analyst Katja Jancic maintained Steel Dynamics with a Market Perform and raised the price target from $130 to $135.
• JP Morgan analyst Bill Peterson maintained Steel Dynamics with a Neutral and raised the price target from $129 to $134.

Considering buying STLD stock? Here’s what analysts think:

Financial giants have made a conspicuous bullish move on Riot Platforms. Our analysis of options history for Riot Platforms RIOT revealed 18 unusual trades.

Delving into the details, we found 50% of traders were bullish, while 44% showed bearish tendencies. Out of all the trades we spotted, 3 were puts, with a value of $107,020, and 15 were calls, valued at $514,431.

Expected Price Movements

Taking into account the Volume and Open Interest on these contracts, it appears that whales have been targeting a price range from $0.5 to $22.0 for Riot Platforms over the last 3 months.

Volume & Open Interest Development

Looking at the volume and open interest is an insightful way to conduct due diligence on a stock.

This data can help you track the liquidity and interest for Riot Platforms’s options for a given strike price.

Below, we can observe the evolution of the volume and open interest of calls and puts, respectively, for all of Riot Platforms’s whale activity within a strike price range from $0.5 to $22.0 in the last 30 days.

Riot Platforms Option Activity Analysis: Last 30 Days

Significant Options Trades Detected:

About Riot Platforms

Riot Platforms Inc is a vertically integrated Bitcoin mining company focused on building, supporting, and operating blockchain technologies. The company’s segments include Bitcoin Mining; Data Center Hosting and Engineering. It generates maximum revenue from the Bitcoin Mining segment which generates revenue from the Bitcoin the company earns through its mining activities.

In light of the recent options history for Riot Platforms, it’s now appropriate to focus on the company itself. We aim to explore its current performance.

Current Position of Riot Platforms

• Currently trading with a volume of 13,946,007, the RIOT’s price is up by 6.8%, now at $9.83.
• RSI readings suggest the stock is currently may be overbought.
• Anticipated earnings release is in 12 days.

Expert Opinions on Riot Platforms

2 market experts have recently issued ratings for this stock, with a consensus target price of $18.5.

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* Reflecting concerns, an analyst from Cantor Fitzgerald lowers its rating to Overweight with a new price target of $22.
* In a cautious move, an analyst from Macquarie downgraded its rating to Outperform, setting a price target of $15.

Options are a riskier asset compared to just trading the stock, but they have higher profit potential. Serious options traders manage this risk by educating themselves daily, scaling in and out of trades, following more than one indicator, and following the markets closely.

If you want to stay updated on the latest options trades for Riot Platforms, Benzinga Pro gives you real-time options trades alerts.

The European Central Bank (ECB) may need to adjust its monetary policy to manage the risk of eurozone inflation falling below its 2% target rather than exceed it, the French central bank governor François Villeroy de Galhau said today. 

To stimulate a lagging economy, the ECB cut on Thursday its interest rates by 25 basis points. The move comes on the heels of eurozone inflation falling to 1.7% in September and sluggish growth, particularly in Germany.

“The risk of undershooting our target in the long term is now as present as the risk of overshooting it,” Villeroy said in a statement. “We should continue to reduce the degree of monetary policy restriction in a timely manner.”

Source: Euro Area Inflation, Trading Economics

The ECB has shifted from battling inflation to encouraging economic growth. The bank maintains a stance that risks to economic growth “remain tilted to the downside.”

Real GDP growth is forecast to grow by 0.7% in 2024 and 1.2% in 2025, or 0.1 percentage point lower than a previous survey for next year. Given this economic weakness, the ECB should make additional cuts, Villeroy said. 

Source: Euro Area Quarterly GDP Growth, Trading Economics

ECB Will Keep Policy Rates ‘Sufficiently Restrictive’

The ECB has not provided specific guidance on future rate changes despite eurozone inflation undershooting its 2% target. ECB President Christine Lagarde said on Thursday that it would keep policy rates “sufficiently restrictive for as long as necessary to achieve” a 2% medium-term target in a timely manner.

“We believe the disinflationary process is well on track and all the information we received in the last five weeks were heading in the same direction – lower,” Lagarde said during the post-event press conference.

The ECB has lowered its deposit rate three times since June to 3.25%, the first back-to-back at such a clip in 13 years. Its latest decision came almost a month after the Federal Reserve announced a bold 50 basis point rate cut. 

ECB deposit/refinancing rate 2000-2024, Source: Barrons

“Persistent moderate private investment and consumption with the recent rise in household savings rates in particular justify this new cut,” Villeroy said.

Although incomes rose in the second quarter, “households consumed less, contrary to expectations,” the ECB said on Thursday. “The saving rate stood at 15.7% in the second quarter, well above the pre-pandemic average of 12.9%.”

Source: Euro Area Savings Rate, Trading Economics

ECB Considers Geopolitics When Weighing Rate Decisions

Geopolitics also weigh on the ECB’s decision-making. “The pace must be dictated by an agile pragmatism: in a highly uncertain international environment, we maintain full optionality for our upcoming meetings,” Villeroy said.

EU officials are concerned that Donald Trump may impose new tariffs and turn more isolationist. Trump said in an interview on Tuesday with Bloomberg Editor-in-Chief John Micklethwait in Chicago that his proposals were for the “protection of the companies that we have here.” 

The military conflict in Ukraine also shows no signs of ending and fighting in the Middle East still threatens regional stability and global oil shipments. However, concerns about a wider conflict in the region have started to ease.

As the “most open of the major economies,”  Europe is more exposed as the global order shifts from “open trade” to  “fragmented trade,” ECB Governor Christine Lagarde said on Wednesday.

“The global order we knew is fading,” Lagarde said on Wednesday in a speech to policymakers in Ljubljana. “Open trade is being replaced with fragmented trade, multilateral rules with state-sponsored competition and stable geopolitics with conflict.”

Lagarde did offer a message of optimism for Europe. IIf Europe approaches “uncertain times” with “the right spirit, I believe it can be an opportunity for renewal.”

Disclaimer

Any opinions expressed in this article are not to be considered investment advice and are solely those of the authors. European Capital Insights is not responsible for any financial decisions made based on the contents of this article. Readers may use this article for information and educational purposes only.

This article is from an unpaid external contributor. It does not represent Benzinga’s reporting and has not been edited for content or accuracy.

M&T Bank Corporation MTB reported better-than-expected third-quarter financial results on Thursday.

M&T Bank reported quarterly earnings of $4.08 per share which beat the analyst consensus estimate of $3.64 per share. The company reported quarterly sales of $2.332 billion which beat the analyst consensus estimate of $2.318 billion.

M&T’s Chief Financial Officer said, “M&T’s positive earnings momentum, strong capital position and unyielding focus on delivering for our customers and the communities we serve have positioned the franchise for a strong finish to 2024. I am proud of how our employees have exhibited our core values as we execute on our strategic priorities.”

M&T Bank shares fell 0.5% to trade at $197.98 on Friday.

These analysts made changes to their price targets on M&T Bank following earnings announcement.

• RBC Capital analyst Gerard Cassidy maintained M&T Bank with an Outperform and raised the price target from $190 to $208.
• Barclays analyst Jason Goldberg maintained the stock with an Equal-Weight and raised the price target from $170 to $228.
• Goldman Sachs analyst Ryan Nash maintained M&T Bank with a Neutral and raised the price target from $190 to $216.

Considering buying MTB stock? Here’s what analysts think:

Read More:

Financial giants have made a conspicuous bullish move on Arista Networks. Our analysis of options history for Arista Networks ANET revealed 21 unusual trades.

Delving into the details, we found 28% of traders were bullish, while 28% showed bearish tendencies. Out of all the trades we spotted, 8 were puts, with a value of $296,060, and 13 were calls, valued at $495,684.

Predicted Price Range

After evaluating the trading volumes and Open Interest, it’s evident that the major market movers are focusing on a price band between $300.0 and $420.0 for Arista Networks, spanning the last three months.

Insights into Volume & Open Interest

Assessing the volume and open interest is a strategic step in options trading. These metrics shed light on the liquidity and investor interest in Arista Networks’s options at specified strike prices. The forthcoming data visualizes the fluctuation in volume and open interest for both calls and puts, linked to Arista Networks’s substantial trades, within a strike price spectrum from $300.0 to $420.0 over the preceding 30 days.

Arista Networks Call and Put Volume: 30-Day Overview

Noteworthy Options Activity:

About Arista Networks

Arista Networks is a networking equipment provider that primarily sells Ethernet switches and software to data centers. Its marquee product is its extensible operating system, or EOS, that runs a single image across every single one of its devices. The firm operates as one reportable segment. It has steadily gained market share since its founding in 2004, with a focus on high-speed applications. Arista counts Microsoft and Meta Platforms as its largest customers and derives roughly three quarters of its sales from North America.

Following our analysis of the options activities associated with Arista Networks, we pivot to a closer look at the company’s own performance.

Where Is Arista Networks Standing Right Now?

• With a trading volume of 612,154, the price of ANET is down by -1.35%, reaching $401.87.
• Current RSI values indicate that the stock is may be approaching overbought.
• Next earnings report is scheduled for 20 days from now.

Expert Opinions on Arista Networks

Over the past month, 3 industry analysts have shared their insights on this stock, proposing an average target price of $438.3333333333333.

Unusual Options Activity Detected: Smart Money on the Move

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* An analyst from Citigroup has decided to maintain their Buy rating on Arista Networks, which currently sits at a price target of $460.
* An analyst from Goldman Sachs has decided to maintain their Buy rating on Arista Networks, which currently sits at a price target of $430.
* An analyst from Evercore ISI Group has decided to maintain their Outperform rating on Arista Networks, which currently sits at a price target of $425.

Trading options involves greater risks but also offers the potential for higher profits. Savvy traders mitigate these risks through ongoing education, strategic trade adjustments, utilizing various indicators, and staying attuned to market dynamics. Keep up with the latest options trades for Arista Networks with Benzinga Pro for real-time alerts.