The marijuana industry produced about as bifurcated a year as investors could have imagined in 2018. By the time the curtain closed, validity had been gained like never before, but pot stocks had been absolutely leveled.

On the bright side, Canada became the first industrialized country in the world to legalize recreational pot in October, with a handful of U.S. states choosing to give the green light to cannabis in some capacity in 2018. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration also approved its very first cannabis-derived drug. In other words, marijuana firmly shed its taboo label and became a legitimate business model last year.

Unfortunately, that didn’t translate into gains for investors. Although pot stock shareholders were rewarded nicely in 2016 and 2017, most marijuana stocks shed 30%, 40%, or even more of their value, in 2018.

As we look at the year that lies ahead, few factors are going to be more important to pot stocks than their operating results — and that all starts with sales growth. Understandably, this industry is starting from a very small base of sales, so we should rightly expect strong double- and triple-digit percentage growth in 2019. [Read more at Yahoo Finance]