Three stocks are high as a kite after Trump’s wild executive order… as investors rush to cash in

Three stocks are on a wild high today after President Donald Trump took action to ease access to psychedelic ‌drugs for medical research.

Investors piled into the niche biotech sector on Monday, sending shares sharply higher across the board. 

Definium Therapeutics was up 10 percent at the open, AtaiBeckley rose nearly 30 percent, while Compass Pathways is up a whopping 60 percent. 

The rally came after Trump signed an executive order on Saturday aimed at speeding up access to new treatments for depression and PTSD.

The order tells the FDA to prioritize certain psychedelic drugs and create a pathway for patients to access them sooner. 

It also sets aside federal funding for research, marking one of the strongest signals yet that Washington is warming to the once-taboo therapies.

Backers say drugs based on compounds like psilocybin – the active ingredient in magic mushrooms – could transform how mental health conditions are treated.

The high-profile announcement was inspired by the efforts of Health Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr, who has championed the use of psychedelic drugs as a viable treatment for mental health conditions.

Wall Street is increasingly buying into that idea. ‘Recently, several psychedelic companies have emerged as bona fide drug developers, attracting attention from healthcare and biotech investors who usually invest in conventional therapeutics,’ wrote Deutsche Bank.

RBC Capital Markets analyst Brian Abrahams cautioned investors that while Trump’s executive order doesn’t ‘explicitly recommend’ psychedelic drugs, it indicates drug developers in the space will benefit from ‘diminishing regulatory risk.’

‘While not explicitly recommending psychedelics, the nature of the EO strongly suggests a broad openness to psychedelics,’ said Abrahams.

Compass Pathways is focused solely on developing a high-purity version of psilocybin – the active ingredient found in magic mushrooms.

The company’s drug candidate is the psychedelic remedy furthest along the FDA’s challenging regulatory gauntlet, currently in advanced trials with patients suffering from treatment-resistant depression.

Recent data from the trials showed that a single dose – combined with therapy – led to a rapid, lasting drop in depression.

AtaiBeckley is working on two drug candidates – BPL-003 and VLS-01 – for treatment-resistant depression.

In a note to clients, Deutsche Bank highlighted the company’s leading position in psychedelic medicine for mental health. ‘We count ATAI among these trailblazers and believe it will become a leader in the nascent field of psychedelic medicine for mental health conditions,’ the bank wrote.

The drugs aim to deliver short trips rather than an hours-long experience. 

When you take psilocybin – the compound that makes magic mushrooms magic – you trip for six or eight hours, requiring a therapist to sit with you the whole time.

AtaiBeckley aims to make its products ‘in and out’ in around two hours, making them much easier for clinics to manage.

The Trump administration’s support for research into psychedelic ‌drub therapies for depression is no accident.

For over a decade, podcast host Joe Rogan has been a vocal and active advocate for psychedelic therapies for mental health problems like depression and PTSD.

Rogan has hosted scientists like Rick Doblin and researchers from Johns Hopkins, helping to nudge psychedelics away from hippie counter-culture and towards being seen as mental health aids.

Meanwhile, Kennedy has long been an advocate of psychedelics as therapy, making them a core part of his ‘make America healthy again’ (MAHA) mission as secretary of health and human services.

Kennedy and other MAHA figures have argued that the FDA ‘suppressed’ research into psychedelics for decades in favor of mental health treatment based on SSRIs, promoted by mainstream drug developers.