Actionable insight to help investors identify investment opportunities A cannabis conference in Tel Aviv prompted this NYU journalism major to launch a cannabis investing podcast. Rena Sherbill the host of The Cannabis Investing Podcast joins Dan Humiston talk about how her role at Seeking Alpha has provided her with access to influential investors as well as the captains of the cannabis industry. She explains how she accommodates listeners of all level of investing experience by not just providing high level information and by also breaking it down. Produced by PodConX Potcasters - https://podconx.com/podcasts/potcasters Dan Humiston - https://podconx.com/guests/dan-humiston Rena Sherbill - https://podconx.com/guests/rena-sherbill The Cannabis Investing Podcast - https://seekingalpha.com/author/the-cannabis-investing-podcast Seeking Alpha - https://seekingalpha.com/
Actionable insight to help investors identify investment opportunities
A cannabis conference in Tel Aviv prompted this NYU journalism major to launch a cannabis investing podcast. Rena Sherbill the host of The Cannabis Investing Podcast joins Dan Humiston talk about how her role at Seeking Alpha has provided her with access to influential investors as well as the captains of the cannabis industry. She explains how she accommodates listeners of all level of investing experience by not just providing high level information and by also breaking it down.
Produced by PodConX
Potcasters - https://podconx.com/podcasts/potcasters
Dan Humiston - https://podconx.com/guests/dan-humiston
Rena Sherbill - https://podconx.com/guests/rena-sherbill
The Cannabis Investing Podcast - https://seekingalpha.com/author/the-cannabis-investing-podcast
Seeking Alpha - https://seekingalpha.com/
PC Cannabis Investing
[00:00:00]
Dan Humiston: All right, everyone. Thanks for joining us. And welcome back. We have another great show in store for you today. Reena Sherbrooke is here to talk about her show, the cannabis investing podcast, Reena. Welcome to the show.
Rena Sherbill: Thank you for having me. It's a great to be here.
Dan Humiston: Well, I am so glad that you could join us today. I've listened. To only a couple of your shows, but it's obvious that you legitimately know cannabis investing. How does somebody with an NYU degree in journalism create one of the most listened to cannabis investing podcast?
Rena Sherbill: Yeah. Great question. It's something I ask myself if not every day than every other day, maybe honestly, I love cannabis before I loved investing. I was saying to earlier that I've been at seeking alpha for 13 years, which is an online financial website that has branched into audio podcasts that is now branching into video.
Content a lot of exciting things, but really taught me, as I told you a lot about investing and a lot about life. And so I just kept [00:01:00] finding more and more things to be interested by until cannabis became something that you couldn't escape. And I live in Tel Aviv and, it's just a huge part of the city here in the innovation.
And a lot of the research and development is happening here. There was a huge conference here. And I had been dabbling in a news podcast and I was like, I got to cover this cannabis conference thinking just as a one-off.
And it clearly was not a one-off and a couple of years later over a hundred episodes later, I am extremely thankful.
I think my journalism degree gave me the ability to talk to people, the ability to bring context to things because I'm definitely coming at it much more from a context place than an investing. I feel like my guests give me a lot of the investing side. And I learned a , tremendous amount by doing the podcast.
So that's the long short answer, I suppose.
Dan Humiston: Well, you can tell during your interviews that you do have a journalist background, because you have a way of taking these really, really complex way beyond my pay scale [00:02:00] and explaining them to a guy like me. And so your guests, yeah. Right. Your guests can talk about the complex stuff, and then you break it down for the listeners, which.
Really makes it easier and enjoyable. , I said I really can see your journalistic background coming through in your interviews.
Rena Sherbill: Well, thank you. I have to say that is like the best feedback I could have ever asked for. That is exactly what I aim to be doing. So that is a thrill to hear. Thank you for that.
Dan Humiston: And it's the truth. And I know from reading in your show notes, that the goal of your show is to provide actionable insight and context, to help investors better, understand the industry and identify opportunities. Give , our listeners some examples of how you do that.
Rena Sherbill: Yeah.
great question. First of all, I think that that's our main goal and I would say like a sub goal of that, you were saying that you're not a veteran by any means you're a novice to the investing world and don't have much experience in it. If at all. And I want to talk to people just like you, with a lack [00:03:00] of experience or if it's confidence or if it's, they just didn't grow up with the background of investing as much as I'm talking to somebody that understands the industry pretty well and is wondering what's going on with all these companies to the person who keeps hearing about these cannabis stocks and is wondering which stopped by.
So, how do I do that? I feel like we do that in a few different ways. Number one, I feel like by having a breadth of guests on, so from CEOs of publicly traded companies to investors, to analysts, Two scientists. So really trying to get a broad scope of what we're even talking about in general. And then I think by the questions that we ask them, obviously an analyst or an investor is going to give you a different answer about which stocks look good.
Then the CEO of a company. But I think even from a CEO of a company, you get a lot of insight into the company themselves. And that I think gives you context for understanding the broader sector. So [00:04:00] both with my questions, both with, some of my commentary, I try to bring it. I think the guests, a lot of times.
, in the beginning of September, we're having Tim see more from CNBC on and he breaks down a lot of questions that people have about cannabis investing. And I am like absolutely thrilled. To be providing a platform to eight people that are on seeking alpha would know about the cannabis industry, to people that know about the cannabis industry, because it's coming from seeking alpha to people that only know about the cannabis industry.
And we're like, wait, maybe I can actually make some money off of this instead of just spending a lot of my money out of this,
Dan Humiston:
Yeah. Well,
we have a clip from an episode, which I think really illustrates this and the title of the episode is masterclass in cannabis investing part one, which , I'm assuming there's part two and part three. Can you tell us a little bit about, yeah. Tell us a little bit about the masterclass and what we're about.
Rena Sherbill: Yeah. So it happened organically. I had on James Baker and Julian Lin to really like top [00:05:00] notch analysts that write on seeking alpha. And I would just read a lot of their articles and James especially focuses. Now, Julian focuses almost solely on the cannabis space at the time James did as well.
And I just felt like their analysis was very cogent. And so I decided to bring them on together. They're also coming at it from different periods in their lives. In their experience, James is more seasoned. Julian is newer in their approach to investing in their thought process on how they see the sector a little bit.
And that certainly develops as the sector has waxed and waned over these past few months. And as we went to episode two and episode three of the masterclass. But, , as I said to you earlier, like in the middle of that class, and I was like, this is a masterclass in cannabis investing and indeed, because I get to write the headline.
I wrote that headline. , but I feel based on the feedback we've gotten, a lot of people would agree and I just feel like of, there's a lot of great stuff. And as you and I discussed, James is a character. Julian is a great straight man. I mean that in the sense of the comedy and I feel like they just really bring a lot of great [00:06:00] angles to a really colorful and robust discussion.
Dan Humiston: well, let's play it , and then we'll talk about it a little bit afterwards.
Rena Sherbill: Awesome. I'm concerned. I'm concerned that some of these people. I've never even seen the cannabis. Mm mm. That they have enough.
Dan Humiston: He's great. He is great. He's a keeper that's
Rena Sherbill: Yeah. That's a colorful, listen, you can't say that.
Dan Humiston: Oh, for sure. I, I found myself getting sucked in on that interview as we were preparing the clips, , I'm listening. I'm like, you gotta get this clip finished, he's so. He's so engaging. And like I said before, you bring it back. So it's understandable. I mean, [00:07:00] he got a little bit deep for me a couple of times, but you brought it back where I could.
Okay. That's what he said, but yeah, I think that's really helpful. And plus now you have part two and part three available. Is that right?
Rena Sherbill: that is right?
And I will say, that clip was recorded in September of 2020. And I think it stands on its own as an episode. But I will say to that point, and I, I probably Julian said it in this episode maybe, but to the point that nobody has cashed, there are clearly are some companies that do just for edification purposes.
There's definitely a few companies that have a nice amount of cash.
Dan Humiston: It's funny that you said that because I was going to ask that as a question you have a couple of disclaimers in your show, which I guess for aspiring podcasters, you have to keep that in the back of your mind that especially if you're on the investing side, there's the, you don't want, I'm assuming you don't want to make any recommendations.
Is that why you put some of your disclaimers in there?
Rena Sherbill: Well, I just, transparency is key. I definitely have made mistakes. I mean, every thing comes with a caveat. Everything comes with a disclaimer. I hope my listeners [00:08:00] know that and nobody's too mad at me. I also am in fruitful conversations with many listeners who are like, have lost a lot more money on a bad investment than I have.
Because they've invested a lot more money than I have. So I try not to fault myself too much because it's a learning process and I'm fallible just like really everybody is even Warren Buffett's fallible, , the important thing is to be transparent and
to not sell anybody, anything. I wouldn't buy myself, at any mistake that I may be caused for somebody else, even with the caveat I've done for myself, so, I think transparency is key. I , I do have personal investments in some of these stocks, but , I'm not getting money for these interviews.
I'm not like trying to, short sell , or, cheat anybody out of anything. , I hope our listeners know that.
Dan Humiston: Yeah. Well, it's really important in what you do to maintain that credibility within your audience, because you do talk about some opportunities and people want to make sure that you're sincere. , before we wrap up, I always like to share a little bit of podcasting advice [00:09:00] just for our aspiring podcasters.
I'd like to talk about rate and reviews we all here, you need to rate and review and supposedly it helps with the search engine algorithms, but. , it's hard to get people to write reviews, but as far as cannabis podcasts go, you've done quite well.
Do you have any secrets that you can share with other podcasters?
Rena Sherbill: great question. It's funny. I know Kevin Kareo came on your from cannabinoid connect was on your show. And I was on his show recently talking about like podcast tips. I will see for rate and review. I will say, I think it goes into something I've tried to do in general. And I think it goes into to how I kind of like leave the notes or leave the requests , for leaving it.
And I don't know if this is true or not. But I feel like a really big thing that I wanted to do. Was to really build it. Of people that like really wanted to learn and grow and know more and empower themselves about investing in the cannabis space.
And I think specifically, it seems to me that a [00:10:00] lot of our audience, at least the ones that I'm in touch with have a real relationship with cannabis predating the investing, and I think also have a relationship with investing. And so they will. To marry those two. So I say that because I feel like I want everybody to feel like we're in something.
I really feel that way. When I write on Twitter, when people write me emails, even when honestly I'm recording the intro by myself in a room, I really feel like I'm talking to people and as maybe trite and as cheesy as that sounds, I really do feel that. And so I feel like. That maybe comes across in some way.
And people feel like inspired to, want to give me a high five. And I think the other thing is I've been very grateful to be on a platform like seeking alpha, which really enables me to get a lot of truly amazing guests. Rena shareable with a microphone. I probably wouldn't be getting as easily, certainly.
And I think that in genders, a lot of Goodwill that I'm bringing some of these people to the airwaves.
Dan Humiston: You keep doing what you're doing because there's [00:11:00] a lot of people that appreciate it. And if people want to listen to you, The cannabis investing podcast. There's a new episode every week on all major podcast sites, including pod connects, you can also apply to be a guest on podcasts. And the next time somebody asked me for a cannabis stock tip, I'm just going to tell them, listen to the cannabis investing podcast.
Reena. Thanks for being on the show today.
Rena Sherbill: Thank you, Dan, can I ask you a question? Can we end with that? Can I ask you what your tips would be for podcast hosting since you run a pretty fabulous one yourself
Dan Humiston: I think he got to commit. I think that's the biggest thing you got to commit. You can't steal second with one foot on first and I have had so many people say to me, oh, I want to start a podcast. I'm like, all right, let's do it.
Well, what about button? I'm like, there's no buts. You just do it. And then you figure it out. And that's, I think my number one tip for people is. Do it