Time flies when you’re having fun. It also flies when you’re making a lot of money.

10 years ago I went against conventional wisdom and said on CNN that long-term investors needed to be buying stocks. I didn’t know the market would bottom that very day, but it turned out to be one of my best calls. More than 10 years later, the market is up 350% as the S&P 500 hit 3,000 today for the first time ever.

Last night, I was thinking back to another similar call from five years ago.

If you were with me back then, I urged investors to keep an eye on marijuana stocks and get in on the cannabis revolution. That was also the opposite of conventional wisdom (and I use the term “wisdom” loosely). I talked about it on television — on Fox Business — and got ridiculed.

I’m used to it. When you invest early in soon-to-be huge trends, a lot of others aren’t on board yet. Of course, they also miss out on the biggest gains.

I’d say my marijuana call is looking pretty good, too. Legalization has spread to 11 states, plus Washington, D.C. Congress held a hearing just today on marijuana laws. And the cannabis industry is on the brink of explosive growth.

Still, most so-called experts on Wall Street don’t take cannabis stocks seriously. They will someday, and it won’t be the first party they’ve been late to. In the meantime, in my investment services we’ve been jumping on incredible opportunities to multiply our money many times over in a matter of months.

Wall Street’s ignorance used to frustrate me, but seeing my readers kill it making big gains erases all frustration.

While the talking heads on Wall Street sit high up in their ivory towers, condemning this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity every chance they get, we’re making big and fast gains.

“How Do You Pick These Winners?”

Many people ask me how I’m able to find these winners.

My approach is simple … but not easy.

You see, most so-called “gurus” like to take either a high-level or a low-level approach to research. They tend to either take a big picture approach to research … or they focus more on individual or micro aspects about the cannabis markets, such as only researching cannabis growers, for example.

Analysts rarely do both, but two approaches are better than one. I do exhaustive research looking at both the macro- and micro-themes within cannabis and how they relate.

But my real secret — don’t tell anybody — is good ol’ fashioned boots-on-the-ground research.

It may seem hard to believe, but so many analysts don’t take time to actually talk to the researchers, scientists, CEOs — even entry-level employees and customers — who make the business tick.

Sure, you can gather valuable information by analyzing financial documents on the internet, but seeing how these businesses are run from the INSIDE is just as important … maybe more. Gaining access to private facilities — and the leaders and end users of these cannabis companies — is probably the most critical part of my research process.

A perfect example of this was my recommendation in MTech Acquisition in January. I had just returned from a cannabis conference in Miami where I met with the management team and even spoke with some of the end users of MTech’s industry-leading software. The company was well-positioned to be the outright leader in cannabis-related software and a potential data aggregator. As far as I could tell, no other analysts in the industry were even looking at this company.

After the meeting, I came away with greater insight into the opportunity. It was even better than I first thought. It was a “special situation” play because there was a scheduled merger that would send shares through the roof. And yet, the opportunity was still unknown to many investors, giving us a chance to get in early.

I warned readers we’d need to practice patience because the big payday would come once the merger was complete. And sure enough, nearly five months after I recommended MTech, the merger took place.

And the big payday I predicted arrived. Shares surged as much as 220% in a single day.

I told my readers to sell some shares and lock in those gains. Our first sell alert netted a gain of 155%. The second sell alert that week resulted in a gain of 545%! And readers who followed my instructions still have half of their shares for more long-term upside potential.

The response I got from my readers was overwhelming.

Make More Money in More Ways

Why do I bring all of this up?

Because as impressive as these gains are, I truly believe this opportunity is just getting started.

We’re still only in the first inning of the cannabis revolution. The best is yet to come, and it’s not too late to make life-changing profits.

I’ve just completed weeks of traveling around North America to find my next big cannabis idea. I have met with new CEOs and valuable young startups doing incredible things within the cannabis industry. I think we could see several more MTech-like setups over the next several months and years.

But here’s the thing: There are multiple ways to invest in marijuana companies … meaning there are multiple ways to make a lot of money.

There are bigger companies and smaller companies. Companies that grow marijuana. Companies that own the land marijuana is grown on. Companies that extract oils. Companies that own retail shops or e-commerce operations. Companies that recently went public. Companies jumping from small stock exchanges to big stock exchanges. Companies that finance other companies. Companies that make software for the cannabis industry. Medical marijuana companies. The list goes on and on.

I’m also beta testing a new way to make money in marijuana stocks that I don’t see anyone else doing yet. The early results are incredible.

We’re positioning ourselves in all of these opportunities in my investment services. Analysts who focus on only one way of investing are missing the forest for the trees.

If you’ve been following my work for a while, you know I believe cannabis will go down as one of the greatest legal creations of wealth in history. I hope you’ll take advantage. If you want my help, I invite you to click here to learn how you can get all of my services and more at a significant discount. This is a special offer for my paying subscribers, but I want to open it up to my loyal MoneyWire readers as well.

Matthew McCall is the founder and president of Penn Financial Group, an investment advisory firm, as well as the editor of Investment Opportunities and Early Stage Investor. He has dedicated his career to getting investors into the world’s biggest, most revolutionary trends BEFORE anyone else. The power of being “first” gave Matt’s readers the chance to bank +2,438% in Stamps.com (STMP), +1,523% in Ulta Beauty (ULTA), +1,044% in Tesla (TSLA), +611% in Liquefied Natural Gas Limited (LNGLY), +324% in Bitcoin Services (BTSC), just to name a few. If you’re interested in making triple-digit gains from the world’s biggest investment trends BEFORE anyone else, click here to learn more about Matt McCall and his investments strategy today.