The Practical Islamic Finance Podcast
The Practical Islamic Finance Podcast
Bitcoin Breakout!
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Bitcoin Breakout!
In this episode, we will cover:
- Intro and Bitcoin Price Update
- China's Impact on Bitcoin Liquidity
- US Interest Rate Cut Predictions
- Inflation and Market Uncertainty
- Pro-Crypto Candidate Gains in Polls
- Stock Market Overview: Tesla, Nvidia, and More
- HIMS Stock Rises 10%
- Enphase Energy Earnings Discussion
- Audience Q&A: Bitcoin Strategy, Biotech Sector Insights
- Wrap-up and Final Thoughts
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salam@practicalislamicfinance.com
ABOUT OUR PODCAST
Our podcast is about helping people ethically build wealth. We cover a broad range of topics including stock and crypto investing, product reviews, and general financial well-being.
DISCLAIMER
Anything you hear in this video is an opinion. It is not personalized financial advice. Make sure you do your due diligence before making any investment decisions.
Assalamu alaikum everyone. I hope you are doing well. Today is Monday, October fourteenth. And it looks like we have somewhat of a breakout in Bitcoin. We're at sixty six thousand. It just hit sixty six while I was speaking up around five percent. We'll talk about why that is the case here with Bitcoin. And we'll talk about. Other movers and largely these movers are. going in a positive direction. There's a lot of opportunity still in the market. We'll talk about some of the names that haven't been doing so well as of late, but maybe on the verge of breaking out. And then we'll talk about whatever the heck you want to talk about, which is one of my favorite parts of these lives. If you do enjoy these lives, make sure to Leave a like. I really enjoy it. Thank you guys for getting us to a hundred likes on our last live. That's really awesome. Let's try and get this one to a hundred likes as well. Walaikum salam to everyone. I'm K and Rashad. Nice to see you. Hope you had a great weekend. So as I mentioned, Bitcoin is at sixty five thousand. Nine hundred and eighty now pulled back twenty dollars since I reported the sixty six thousand dollar price. But inshallah, there is more upside where that came from. And will we finally get a breakout? Well, it all depends on one thing and one thing only, really. And that is the liquidity level. What we got today in terms of upside for Bitcoin is a function of liquidity, but not in the US. It is a function of liquidity and prospects for liquidity coming out from China. So China over the weekend mentioned that they had significant room for deficit, basically borrowing, which means that they are willing and able to stimulate the economy as much as needed, basically, fiscally, monetarily, as much as needed in order to get the Chinese economy churning again and the markets like that, especially Bitcoin. As it relates to the United States, we are still looking at a twenty five basis point cut in November. at a probability of eighty seven percent, twelve percent probability for staying the same. So not getting the twenty five basis point cut, basically a zero percent chance is being assigned to a fifty basis point cut. And I have to say, I I'm not surprised because as we saw last week, inflation was still warm. I'm not going to say it's hot, but we're still above the two percent target. The Fed was pretty adamant in all of its comments that they're not changing the goalposts. So if we are at the two percent target, we're still hot. Twenty five to thirty percent above that target. And therefore, we still have a ways to go to reach the Fed's target. That being said, depending on the week and depending on the report that's coming out, we're getting mixed economic data. Some is showing that the economy is resilient. Some is showing that, oh, maybe the economy isn't as resilient as we first thought. thought it was, which is understandable because there is lagging effects to monetary tightening. And therefore, it's going to take time for the monetary tightening that we've been through to completely reflect itself in the economy. The Fed knows this about the economy and knows this about the impact of their rate cuts. So they have to not just be data driven because being data driven is looking in the rear view mirror constantly. They have to anticipate what is coming ahead. or else they're going to be late they were late on inflation let's hope they are not late with a with a unwinding of the tightening that they've done and when you look at the fed minutes there is a lack of consensus in the fed with regards to which way to go. And so that is reflecting itself in some of these probabilities. And it's reflecting itself, the market likes visibility. And so unless we have certainty with regards to the Fed's upcoming movements, this lack of certainty will be heavy on the market until certainty is achieved. Now, something that was bullish for the markets and especially for Bitcoin, in addition to the stimulus that China has alluded to, is the fact that the more pro-crypto candidate seems to have pulled ahead here in the polls, at least as per PolyMarket, which I would consider to be one of the most reliable markets polls out there because there is money behind it. So people are actually trying to figure out, they're actually betting with real money on who's going to win. It's a silly exercise, but in terms of the data that comes out from it, it, I think, tends to have the most veracity because there's money behind it. It's not just the poll that may be politically motivated. It's actually people are putting their money where their mouth is, as the saying goes. As it relates to the stock world, the world of equities, my favorite world to be in, it looks like a green day today. Looks like everything is pretty greenish. with exception to energy here which is always good because energy not being greenish means that inflation is probably headed in the right direction which is doubly good for asset prices now I looking forward I do think that the most serious concern we have regarding inflation is the price of oil and the price of commodities generally. So unless the prices of commodities go up, we should be good on the inflation side of things. But geopolitical risks could throw a wrench in that. It does seem like what I've been hearing regarding the Israel-Iran conflict, what I've been hearing is that Iran sent messages to Israel through a third party that, hey, if your response isn't that strong, then we won't retaliate. Israel is reported to have rejected that notion and has said that its response will be strong. And so the Iranian response, at least from what I've heard, is that they may not target Israel per se, but they will target oil facilities in the Gulf. So Saudi Arabia, Qatar, United Arab Emirates, and that would cause a spike in commodity prices for sure, but it will likely not be long term. As it relates to China, another potential spot of conflagration on the global scene, there does seem to be some Chinese exercises around the Taiwan island, and that's quite unsettling. Hopefully that doesn't develop. So, you know, Unless there's a geopolitical crisis, I think the price of energy will not move against us. If there is, it may move against us, but hopefully that is not drawn out. Let us look at some of the other prices of things today. So we have the Dow Jones is up point four two percent. Nasdaq is up point seven one percent. S&P is up point seven percent. Russell two thousands up point five percent. Dollar index has strengthened a bit and the VIX is down. So it looks like the market isn't too nervous. Tesla is back in the green after the swing traders have closed their trades following the Robotaxi event. Uber is back down, giving up some of its gains that it enjoyed after Tesla's RoboTaxi event. Nvidia seems close to one forty. The price of lithium seems to have fallen back and people on lithium has fallen back close to nine percent. And that's why we always take profits, folks. So congrats to people who took profits following our portfolio. Enphase is up point one three percent. Now Enphase is a company that I'd like to take a closer look at. First Solar is down again. Now HIMS is up nine percent. We'll talk about why it is up nine percent. Iris Energy is up close to seven percent. Bitdeer is up four and a half percent. So not too shabby for those companies. Now let's talk about M phase here and M phase reports earnings the same day Tesla does October twenty third, if I am not mistaken. Looking at the income statement here, it is not a pretty picture because we have to compare it with last year's performance. So when we look at revenue, operating expense, net income, so revenue and net income are down a lot if you compare them with the same quarter of last year. That being said, their net profit margin is still healthy as it relates to... Now, one of the things that I really like about Enphase Energy, and full disclosure, I did have a position in Enphase Energy, but I closed it out after their interests, their reliance on interest, as per my criteria, broke the threshold that I am comfortable with. That threshold is two point five percent, by the way. This two point five percent comes from the threshold for Zakat. So this is basically in contrast to the five percent which IOFI uses. And the reason why I went with the stricter two point five percent criteria is because it actually has some logical connection to what we know about Zakat. Whereas five percent is just a random number. So I went with two point five percent. I'm comfortable with that because it's a more strict criteria. Long story short, I ended up selling Enphase, but I still think it's an amazing company. I also think that, you know, how I always emphasize profitability, profitability, profitability, the gross margins here are fifty percent, which is fantastic. And it's in the solar space, which I want to be in. And so I think my gut is telling me, now it's something you have to understand about microinverters and solar. They're very sensitive to interest rates. So when interest rates go up, a lot of these solar stocks will go down because a lot of the purchases are done through financing and they become more expensive when interest rates go up. So their product becomes less attractive. And now that we're in that part of the cycle where interest rates are expected to go down, these stocks may do quite well. And also just the business of microinverters and solar tends to be very cyclical because what happens is demand exceeds supply. There's a lot of capex investing to increase capacity. And then you have a supply glut. Eventually, supply exceeds demand. And then you go through sort of the trough of the cycle where inventories are being cleared out. And then we repeat the process again. We may be entering that phase here, I think, where inventories are being cleared out and sales will start going up again. And so I will be closely watching the Enphase earnings report. I'll give you guys my thoughts on it when it comes out. And I may be adding it back in to our portfolio if it meets my reliance on interest criteria. So something to watch out for. Just a heads up for you guys. Oh, yeah. With regards to HIMS and HERS, why is it up? Ten percent. Well, first, it's because of, inshallah, the barakah that the PIF portfolio has. But the second reason is the shares of hims and hers are popping ten percent higher. This is today. to trade at twenty fifty. Well, actually, where are we right now? Twenty thirty seven. So pretty recent article here of good news from the Food and Drug Administration. The FDA announced it will allow compounding pharmacies to create and sell their own version of Eli Lilly's weight loss drug, Mongero. So how this relates to him and hers is that They produce a compounded drug used for weight loss. And a couple of weeks back, if you'll recall, there was news of the FDA saying the shortage that allowed for these compounds to be sold in the first place may be ending for Eli Lilly, Eli Lilly's drug. And therefore, stocks that were producing compounds fell in price. In relation to this piece of news, because investors thought, hey, well, it started with Eli Lilly. It's probably going to move to other similar drugs and then Hems would be impacted by that. And so now that it seems like, oh, maybe the FDA is going to allow these compounded drugs to be manufactured, this is impacting HIMS in a very positive way. That being said, I think HIMS is a larger play than just this one application. The future of pharmacy is going to be personalized, it's going to be convenient, and it's going to be low cost. And HIMS and HERS is a provider of pharmaceuticals that was built from the ground up. on this basis so whereas you know walgreens and cvs and other commonly known pharmacies may be trying to integrate an online presence to their operations hymns and hers is is built with that in mind and with vertical integration in mind so this allows them to keep costs down on their products and it also helps with personalization, the vertical integration, helps with personalization. And I think that's a big part of the future of pharmaceuticals. Plus, the reason why it's up ten percent today is because this is a stock that is heavily shorted. So if you look at the short float here, fourteen point two four percent, that's a lot. So out of all the shares that HIMS has on the market, fourteen percent of them are sold. short which means that any amount so any piece of good news regardless of how small it's gonna it's gonna be exaggerated on the way up and it's also be gonna be exaggerated on the way down that's why i I'm attracted to stocks that have really good fundamentals that I believe in that are heavily shorted because they have two benefits. Number one, when something, when a bad piece of news comes out, they end up overshooting on the downside, which creates amazing buying opportunities. And number two, when positive news comes out, they overshoot on the upside, which creates amazing profit-taking opportunities. So this is the case with HIMSS. It was the case with PLL. We enjoyed some of the profits there. And so all is good, alhamdulillah, for us. Now, with that being said, let's take some questions. Wa alaykum as-salamu alaykum wa rahmatullah. Julfikar. Here to say like the video in case the brother here didn't say it already. Well, thank you so much. I really appreciate that. We do have the best community on YouTube. I will fight anyone who tries to challenge me on that. Thank you, brother. Salim says, I know you get asked this question a lot, but why are you so handsome? No, I'm just kidding. But if I had some cash on the side, is it okay if I buy Bitcoin at once with the current price instead of dollar cost averaging? Or should I wait for a pullback? Well, kind sir, Bitcoin at current price remains below our buy price. I'm just going to give you a bit of inside baseball, so to speak. So we have a watch list. We have buy prices, sell prices for the assets that we cover. And I can tell you that it's below our buy price. So I would still be buying. Rashad says, is it worth looking into biotech at this time or would you favor another sector? You know, Rashad, as you know, I do have some biotech plays and biotech requires a lot of patience. And so I'm less inclined to invest right now in biotech because it seems like there's a lot of sort of obvious plays that we can put our money in. And I just don't want to pay the opportunity costs of waiting too long for biotech to actually play out. So that being said, in lower interest rate environments, names like in the biotech sector tend to do rather well. So I think it, you know, I think in general, the sector will do well. But for me, I want to make sure that I'm not missing out on the fastest horses for this period of time. So that's what I will be searching for. Abdullah says, Salaam, by the way. Nice to see you, Abdullah. Walaikum Salaam. Speaking of thresholds, you mentioned before that you don't apply this two point five percent condition on companies that don't make profits or small companies. Could you speak more to this? Yeah, so I think the level of maturation for the company needs to be taken into account. You have to, whenever you're assessing a company, apply it through, first, the predefined criteria that you've set. But also, it's important to apply it to a common sense criteria. So the common sense criteria will say, OK, if this company doesn't have any revenue, this company doesn't have any income. Does it make any sense for me to say, oh, well, what's the relation of interest income or interest expense to revenue or expense for that company? Does that make any sense? Because even one dollar. of income interest income for example is if that if it's not making any income the company isn't is going to tell you oh well this is a company that's completely reliant on interest so it's important to apply the common sense criteria whenever you're assessing companies and so you can think of it like this like let's say You want to start a company from scratch and you're given, you know, friends and family give you a hundred thousand dollar cash loan interest free to start your company. And you take that money and you put it in the bank, in a bank account. Obviously you're going to have, you're not going to stash it under your mattress. You're going to put it in a bank account. So if the bank pays you, I don't know, five dollars in interest, Does that mean, okay, your company is haram to invest in? I can't put money in your company anymore because you receive five dollars in interest, which is infinitely more than your income, which is zero. No, it doesn't mean that. So this is why I think you have to actually think about the conclusions that you're coming out with and whether they makes sense. So always apply the common sense criteria. Assalamu alaikum, Yahya. Nice to see you. It's telemedic. Assalamu alaikum. Can BTC make some correction? It absolutely can. It absolutely can. However, I do think that the, the upside here, the probability for upside here exceeds the probability for downside. And that's why I like it at this point. So with that being said, let me know what you'd like me to cover in tomorrow's live in the comments. And make sure to leave a like, become a PIF member if you're not a PIF member yet. Till next time, make sure to take care of yourself. Assalamualaikum and peace be upon you all.