As-salamu alaykum everyone, I hope you are doing well. Piedmont Lithium is another stock that I've spoken about before on this channel. They reported earnings today before market open and I just want to update you guys on what I thought about their earnings report. And basically their earnings reported, the company rather, reported a miss, a double miss on revenue and earnings. The stock reacted negatively and SINs recovered a lot of ground that it lost. General market seems to be doing relatively well, rebounding from Monday's drop. But if you wanted the short, succinct version of today's live, the short message is that lithium prices are what is going to determine the trajectory for this particular stock. And considering lithium prices have performed poorly this year, so did the stock. So we saw a small recovery in March, April, May, but then the recovery didn't last. And we saw our prices for lithium fall to yearly lows. And really we haven't seen these types of prices since early 2021 and late 2020. Now, if you believe that lithium prices are going to stay where they are, or they're going to drop, then this is not the stock for you. If you believe lithium prices will recover as commodities tend to be rather cyclical in their nature, and we'll see a good chart showing that. Then I think that we've gone through the majority of the trough in this down cycle. And I think that we are getting ready for a leg up on lithium prices and by extension on this stock. And if you just want to look historically to see the cycle, how it plays out in action. So this is the end of year market cap for Piedmont Lithium. You can see right now, at least we're at 160 million in market cap for this company. At the end of last year, we were at half a billion. At the end of the year before we were at three quarters of a billion. At the end of 2021, we were at 830 million. And you can see the returns here. So in 2019, what the stock returned 2020, it's basically 5X doubled in 2021. You can see these three years of basically fantastic returns followed by three years of not so great returns. But I do believe that we're due for a leg up here on this stock. Let's go over the investor presentation for this company. And I won't go over everything in the investor presentation. I'll go over what's most important so that you guys can get on with your day and get just what is useful. Now, if what I've gone over is sufficient for you, you're about to leave, then do leave. I would appreciate if you do that. And if you aren't a PIF member yet, do become a member. We'd love to have. So earnings presentation, Piedmont Lithium, second quarter. Let's look at basically this company has three primary assets. They have North American Lithium, the partnership with them, and they've reached basically steady state operations. And they are forecasted to remain basically uninterrupted operations for the second half of 2024. In Ghana, they are securing funding for additional capital expenditures. And in Carolina, they are looking for strategic partnering and funding. They already have received the necessary permitting and approvals. And they are thinking about consolidating their Tennessee operations with their Carolina operations for efficiency's sake. All right. Now, financials as reported this quarter, nothing really to write home about. You had around 13 million in revenue. And keep in mind, there was a ramp up here in production. Realized price per metric ton and $45. Realized cost per metric ton, $900. Again, here, not really anything to write home about in terms of gross margins, five or 6%, but these gross margins stand to increase substantially as lithium prices increase. Because basically the increase is the fixed costs are the majority of the costs here. So any increase in the price of lithium, the price that they can get for selling every metric ton, that's going to go straight to their bottom line. And that's going to, I think, really reflect itself in analyst projections for the cash flows of this stock. And with that, the price per share. Company sits on 59 million in cash. I do expect soon a funding event for this company, especially in light of us entering a period of monetary easing. So if you look at the market cap changes that I went over, really, they corresponded quite nicely with easing policy versus restrictive policy. And when there was easing policy, you saw the market cap jump. When there was a restrictive policy, you saw the market cap shrink. And so now that we're entering into another easing period, I think you're going to see the market cap jump again. All right. So they're saying here where they use their cash. So something that's really positive about this operation is that it's quite lean. You can see the operating cash flow was basically at $0. So they weren't really losing money from their operations, despite lithium prices being where they are, again, at year-to-date lows at prices we haven't seen since early 2021, late 2020. Capital expenditures and investments and advances to affiliates are really where the cash is going. And those are set to decrease substantially in the second half year of 2024. So I think that we are going to see a rebound in prices. We'll look at production, what is expected for Piedmont in the second half of 2024. So we should see an uptick in revenue and a downtick in capital expenditures and investments required. And so the cash flow situation should improve substantially. I also think that we are close to a funding event for this and a partnership deal for this company. And I think that's going to perhaps cause a gap up in the price. As I mentioned, this is a very lean company. They've managed to weather this downturn, the cyclical trough in lithium. They've shaved $10 million in annual run rate costs off of their operations. So that's great. Typically what happens is when a trough in a cyclical business happens, the company becomes lean again. And when on the upside, there may be some fat accumulated. Right now we're in the lean stage of the company's cycle. So that's great. They've managed to, I think, manage costs quite well. And as I mentioned, they're consolidating their Tennessee lithium into Carolina lithium. So rather than having these two locations, they're just going to build out Carolina lithium. And I think that makes a lot of sense considering the permitting and licensing approvals that they got there. All right. This goes to show what I spoke about earlier regarding first half versus second half. If you look at the first half, the total dry metric tons were around 34 shipments and the capital expenditures were at nine. Here we're talking million investments and advances to affiliates, 23 million. The capital expenditures for the second half of 2024 are expected to be between three and 5 million. So compared to 9 million for the first half. And for the investments and advances to affiliates, they're expected to be between 10 and 13 million versus 23 million for the first half. So you're going to see less cash outflows here in the second half. But if you look at that top line shipments, the actual shipments in the first half were around 30. And the outlook for Q3 and Q4 is around 95. So there's going to be a lot more shipments, a lot less capital expenditures and investments. And if you couple that with an improving lithium price, which I think is probable considering the easing monetary situation, more capital expenditures or more rather capital financing that may involve cars will become cheaper. So perhaps demand for them, electric vehicles that is, will become cheaper. Demand for them may increase also. So they'll become cheaper on a monthly payment basis because interest rates are down. And the battery storage facilities. So if there were projects that were on hold because the cost of capital was very high, then those projects may commence. And with it, the demand for lithium for those batteries will increase raising the price of lithium. So it does seem like H2 should be better than H1. That's why I'm saying that I think that the majority of the is behind us. We're closer to the end of the trough than we are to its beginning. So we talked a bit about this. So in terms of dry metric tons in the thousands, what we expect, what has already happened. So around 30,000 dry metric tons for Piedmont lithium since year to date, we're expecting again, 95,000 dry metric trans for the end of the year regarding the utilization. So the mill utilization for the North American lithium production increased from 73% to 83% concentrate production also increased. So North American lithium has a partnership agreement with Piedmont lithium to provide them with outtake and we're seeing a mill utilization and production increasing. Now lithium futures, again, this is a telltale sign for where the market thinks the price of lithium is going. And it also provides opportunity for the company Piedmont to sell lithium at a greater price than what it is being offered or at least lock in higher prices than what is being offered on the spot market. We can see lithium futures are in contango. That just means that future prices are higher than current prices. So that's good. This is the, of a render of the, their Ghana project, as well as a picture of sort of the scope of their Carolina lithium project, which is quite substantial. This is a really interesting chart, which I think highlights the cyclicality of lithium and the returns on this particular commodity. So if you look at the right here, you can see lithium oscillates between the best performing commodity and the worst performing commodity. And you can see in 2021, 2022, in terms of commodity price returns, it was the best returning commodity in 2023. It was the worst. And so it, and you see this change again from 2018 to 2019 being the worst to, and 2020 being mid pack and 2021 being the best. So this is a very cyclical as commodities tend to be all commodities tend to be like this. And I am expecting a recovery here, even if the trough turned out to be longer than some expected. And you can see the year to date average reported prices. As I mentioned, there was a recovery March, April, but that recovery didn't really last long. And we're now at year to date lows. So I think it's probably, probably a good time to buy again, not financial advice, do your own due diligence. This is very, this is very, I think, instructive for this investment. So as I mentioned in the beginning, if you're bullish on the price of lithium, you're bullish on demand for lithium, and you see the imbalance between supply and demand, then this is probably a good investment for you. If you're not bullish on the price of lithium, you don't think a recovery is going to happen, then I would stay away from this stock. So if you look at global EV uptake continues to improve. So you see, yes, it does. It is seasonal. H1 tends to be less than H2, but the overall trend is upwards. H2 2023 was greater than H2 2022. H1 2024 was greater than H1 2023. I'm expecting a strong second half here for 2024. If you look at battery pack size, which I think will contribute more and more to the demand for lithium, you can see quarter after quarter, half after half, that size is increasing. That means more demand for lithium. And you can see on the top right, EVs are reaching price parity in the US. So the price of an EV car is basically the same as the price of a non-EV car. And that's not taking into account the savings that you get with an EV car. You can look at future US Gigafactory lithium demand and see how that's increasing. You can see current supply and planned supply and the expected demand. So there's an imbalance here between demand and supply in favor of demand, which is always good for prices. Now there's additional channels for demand. So it's not just battery packs and EVs. And if you look at relative commodity demand 2023 to 2025, you can see the growth in lithium is expected to be quite larger than copper and nickel. And we've seen copper do quite well and nickel even do quite well. I expect the same will hold true for lithium. Now, one of the reasons why I've chosen Piedmont Lithium as opposed to other lithium companies, and there are a lot, is because of the added advantage of having a strong presence in North America. So this blue sort of sliver is the lithium that is coming from North America. So you can see mine lithium supply, only a small fraction, 2% is coming from North America. Lithium chemical supply, same. Battery demand, the same. Actually, I'm sorry, battery demand, 15% is coming from North America. Obviously there's an imbalance between that and the supply and mine supply and lithium chemical supply. So if there's any sort of, and I think the government in the United States is moving towards localizing lithium, just as for the same reason it moved towards increasing production of oil in North America, it's because it doesn't want to be reliant on other countries for its energy. And Forbes made the observation that the United States is now four times more reliant on China for critical minerals and their processing than it was on the Middle East at the peak of the nation's oil dependence. So I think there is a movement in the United States. Definitely legislators will be providing increasing incentives for mineral operations, mineral extraction operations, localized so that in case there is tension or relationship between the United States and China hits a speed bump, we're not dependent on them for our energy, which is a matter of national security. Piedmont is one of the very few lithium miners that has the scale and the capital in place already to provide production at a substantial rate. There's a strong focus on cash management. We mentioned they're saving 10 million in run rate savings. So they've become more lean as a company. And there are some catalysts to watch out for. I think the most probable and perhaps impactful will be another partnership agreement that they have concerning their Carolina project, which I think will be basically their flagship project, lithium mining project. And so we may hear good news about that any day now. So that will prove, I think, to be a substantial catalyst. And yeah, that's basically the most important parts of their presentation today. Long story short, I think that this is a play on the price of lithium. If you think the price of lithium is going to increase, then Piedmont lithium, I think, is a good stock to have. I personally think that the price of lithium will increase. I think that right now at 160 million, the stock is probably at a bargain. And that's why I continue to hold it. It is an exercise in patience here regarding the price of lithium. But even today in their earnings call, they mentioned that they were holding off on some capital investments until the price of lithium improved. And so the fact of the matter is, right now, there's a imbalance between projected demand for lithium and projected supply. And yet projected supply is not increasing because the price of lithium is too low to justify capital expenditures at this point in time. Eventually, in order to solve this, in order to increase supply of lithium so that it meets demand, the price of lithium has to increase in order for capital investments to resume. And Piedmont lithium is not the only company that is holding off on additional capital investments in lithium. It is across the board. Regardless of which lithium company you look at, they're all putting their expansion projects on hold until the price of lithium improves. So I think it's a matter of time. I don't know when it will happen. I think we're near a point where the prices of lithium recover and with it, the price of this stock will recover as well, inshallah. All right. With that, let's go to questions. Thoughts on link and potential prices is that I won't be able to answer that now, but just for future preparation, is that the crypto or the stock? Abdullah says, always good to attend your live. Thanks, Abdullah. Always good to see you. Curious to know if PLL and Tesla are correlated in your review. Yeah, I do think they're correlated. Obviously Tesla will rebound when demand for electric vehicles rebounds. And this means that demand for lithium will go higher. The price of lithium should follow and so should the price of PLL stock. Is Tesla's success necessary for PLL bull run? No, it's not necessary. There's correlation, but there's not a dependence relationship there. Are you following SMCI? Yes, I am following SMCI. It's actually looking more attractive at today's prices and perhaps I'll have a detailed review of it. Thanks, Arshad. Really appreciate it. I'm curious if you have looked into BitDigital since I couldn't find a halal report on PIF website. I haven't looked into BitDigital. Yeah, as you mentioned, I'm a fan of BitDeer. I think BitDeer will do well. Wa'alaikum salam, virtual chaos. Nice to see you. Are mining practices ethical as Taskine? Well, it depends on the company. I think mining in and of itself is a tough thing to work in, but it is necessary and it's not necessarily all mining companies are unethical. I think one of the reasons why I've stayed away from companies with substantial operations in China is that it's really hard to verify whether their treatment of their miners is actually ethical. I trade crypto using USDT and on the PIF site, it's trading it as uncomfortable. All my profits are in USDT and I basically use USDT when it comes to crypto. Is it halal in this case? So, I think with regards to Tether, I think the issue with it is the lack of clarity. I wouldn't keep any savings there in USDT, but if you're just using it as a medium of exchange and you're not saving your money with USDT, I think you're fine. Another question is, are Forex prop firms haram or halal? Typically, Forex is derivatives and so I stay away from Forex. What do you think about Arcadium Lithium? It's catching the attention of many investors, operations, revenue looks very solid. I think they're a good company. I'm trying to remember, I think Arcadium may have had a lot of operations in China. I may be mistaken here, I'm trying to remember, but there was a reason why I passed on it. As I mentioned, one of the reasons why I chose PLO is because of its focus on North America, which is not really common. Is Robinhood sufficient enough to DCA daily for the next three to five years or so for an easy hassle-free long-term investment, considering Robinhood has no fees? Yeah, I think Robinhood is a good brokerage. I just would try to diversify the brokerages that I use. Some brokerages go down. I know, theoretically, there are insurances for different brokerages, but you never know. You certainly don't want to go into that process. So I'd probably diversify into, depending on how much money you're talking about, I don't know, thousands of dollars or even tens of thousands. I think they're fine being all in the same brokerage, but if you're talking about hundreds of thousands of dollars, millions, certainly I would diversify into different brokerages. Which president you think will be better for the stock market in general and for PIF investments in particular? I think probably Trump will be better. Typically, Republicans have more pro-business policies, but I think there's pros and cons for each. How CA, I'm not sure what that means. Oil production up, cheaper traditional cars, less demand on EV, problem for Tesla and PLL. No, I think you're seeing growth and demand for, you're seeing a decline in the rate of growth, but the growth is solidly positive. Isn't there research being done on lithium alternative batteries? Any comments on that? Yeah, I do think that in the future we may see alternatives to lithium batteries, but those are like years and years to come in the future. And also with lithium prices being this low, there's really not that much incentive for these alternative batteries. Lithium is a very common element on earth. Unless lithium increases to prices that are much higher for a sustained period of time, I don't think there'll be enough motivation to switch to any alternative. How confident are we in their Ghana operation? Ghana is well known to have slave, miner labor, and many Western companies using contractors in those countries that use these practices. I don't want to speculate on what could be. Right now there isn't an operation. We'll deal with that if it arises. If lithium prices go high, isn't that bad for Tesla? If lithium prices go high, that means that demand for EVs is probably higher. As a percentage of their margins, I think the advantages of selling more and therefore reducing the fixed costs associated with each car will outweigh the increase in the price of lithium. I'm coming in late here, but are you familiar with Ondo Crypto? I've heard of it. I haven't really done a deep dive into it. Perhaps we'll do a live soon about crypto. Would you continue buying from the PIF portfolio if you have the money to spare or wait for things to settle more? I would actually DCA into the PIF portfolio. I think it's a fantastic group of stocks that will do very well. How worried are you about Elon Musk's continuing support of anti-Islamic forces given our heavy focus on Tesla? I think that's definitely something that I think about. My position is that I'm invested in Tesla. I'm not invested in Elon Musk. I think the impact that Tesla has had is quite good. I also think that if we look at tangible things, I think that Elon Musk has done more good despite his moronic statements regarding Israel and supporting them and Arabic language as the language of the enemy and stupid stuff like that, despite all of that. And I don't trust him because he's an atheist at the end of the day, and I don't trust atheists. Their morality is just, it's not something that you can, you know, hang your hat on. It's just fluid. Every day, it's a different thing. I would say that in terms of impact, if I want to just judge like tangible impact that this person has had, I think it's positive. If you look at Tesla, obviously, I think moving to EVs and saving the planet from CO2 emissions, that's a positive. If you look at things, even his other projects, like Starlink, for example, providing high speed internet to Indonesia, which is something that recently Starlink has decided to do, that's extremely positive. The possibilities of income earning now that are available for millions of people in Indonesia that perhaps previously didn't have access to high speed internet are life changing for them. So despite his ill-informed comments on Twitter, his actual impact, I think, like tangible impact in terms of like products, I don't, it's tough to gauge how much his comments have actually translated into people changing their behavior towards Muslims. I wonder, I think what really happens is like when someone like that says something, it either confirms a previously held belief, or it creates animosity with that person. It doesn't really change people's minds. I don't think he's changed many people's minds.