As salam alaikum, everyone, I hope you are doing well. If you've been following the markets this week, you're probably in need of a hug, and this live will be the hug that you need inshaAllah. For those who are unaware, the S&P tumbled Friday today to post worst week since 3 Nasdaq drops 2% for worst weekly performance since 2022. Now today's drop came after a jobs report that I think was decent. I don't think that the drop is necessarily justified. I do think that people are actually ascribing the drop to this report erroneously. I think the drop was caused by something else, actually the opposite, and I'll explain that in a second. That being said, as I always say, these are times when the macro is looking very jittery when there is a lot of uneasiness in the markets. Your job as an investor is to hunker down and focus on the fundamentals of the positions that you hold. Are those fundamentals changed or not? If they aren't changed, then you should view drops in the market as opportunities to buy more. If they are changed, of course, you have to adjust accordingly. However, changes in macro should not impact your thinking about individual positions that you hold if you are invested in those positions because of the longer term fundamentals as opposed to the shorter term headwinds or tailwinds in the market. This is what we avoid investing based on. We always say we have a time horizon at least two or three years for our investments. Sometimes, maybe we have something on the order of 12 months, but not something that a single jobs report is going to change. Let's look at what happened and put things into context, and then I'll go into an analysis. Today, if you look at the S&P, for example, it's down less than 2%, if you look in the last five days, it's down north of 3.5%. The last month, it's up, in the last six months, it's up 6%. A year to date, it's up 14%, and in one year, it's up 21%. So if we zoom out here, things aren't really that bad. Yes, this week was, as I mentioned, a tough one. We haven't seen one this bad since 2022, but zoom out a bit and understand that we're in September. I mentioned before, September is a very rough month, in September, as some people refer to it. There's some seasonality here, and perhaps there's a possibility here that investors have front run the anticipated drop in asset prices, and perhaps we get a stronger second half of the month than many expect, because we took, we front ran the expected decline in assets, and therefore the worst is basically behind us. If we look at the VIX, I've gone over this before, when you're investing, the numbers are clear. If you're investing in environments where the VIX is higher, your returns are expected to be higher. The VIX, by the way, is the volatility index used as a proxy for basically degree of nervousness in the market. When the VIX is higher, people are more nervous, there's more fear. And historically speaking, when you're investing when the VIX is higher, the returns turn out to be higher for investors. Invest when there's fear in the market, not when there's greed. If you invest when there's fear in the market, you should expect to do better than someone who's just riding whatever wave there is. You make money when you buck the herd. I'm not saying you should always be bucking the herd just for the sake of it, but when there's reason to, and you do it, and you have the courage to do it, that's when you really make a lot of money. So here's actually why the markets fell today, I'll give you the real reason. Don't listen to CNBC, don't listen to anyone else, I'm going to tell you why they fell today. The real reason is that the possibility, because the jobs report I think was decent, and there is, I think, less reason to do a 50-base point cut, the probability of a 50-base point cut actually decreased today, if you compare it to yesterday, for example. So right now, we're looking at a 25-base point cut at 70% in the September meeting versus a 30% for a 50-base point cut. And because the probability of a 50-base point cut decreased today on the heels of that report, the US dollar index, the strength of the dollar actually went up a bit. So as I've been saying, if you look at the trend of the US dollar, when the US dollar experiences weakness, this is typically good for US dollar-denominated assets, because global investors can access them for cheaper prices, because the dollar is weaker. When the interest rate associated with the lending and borrowing in the US dollar is expected to be higher, the dollar becomes stronger. When it's expected to be lower, the dollar becomes cheaper. And therefore, I think what happened right now today is that anticipation for a 50-base point cut has decreased in probability. For only a 25-base point cut has increased, the dollar gained a bit of strength, and that caused the market to sell off a bit. And sentiment behind this jobs report strengthened that sell off. But really, the main culprit here was the US dollar index, in my point of view. But the reason why I remain bullish is because of what I've been mentioning for a while now, which is global liquidity levels, and this is why I remain bullish on a macro level. We'll talk about why I remain bullish on some of our individual positions. Thank you, US me. We'll talk about why I remain bullish on some of our individual positions later. But global liquidity continues to rise, and this is going to raise all boats, or most boats, the quality assets, of course, and the anticipation for the rest of the year, and at least the first half of 2025, is that this trend is set to continue. This is not just something that we're seeing right now, and maybe we're at the end of the trend, but we're at the start of the easing cycle globally, not just in the US, for most major economies, and so this should bode well for asset prices. Now let's talk about some of the movers today. So Piedmont Lithium, every time you look at this stock, it's basically down. We'll have a day or two where it pops 10%, but then it's down the next day and the day after that. And the reason for that, this is a Lithium mining company, and its main operation. Right now it's producing out of Canada, its main asset though, its crown jewel is in North Carolina. That asset, by the way, was valued at the present value for future cash flows for that for only the North Carolina location mine, was valued at $2 billion in 2021. Granted, the Lithium prices were a lot higher. The EBITDA for that one location was half a billion dollars per year. The estimated EBITDA earnings before interest taxes, depreciation, and amortization. How much is this company selling for today?$145 million. That's the entire market cap of this company. Why is that the case? Lithium prices are the culprit. We got ahead of ourselves in 2021 with Lithium prices and anticipation for the moves towards electrification. And there was oversupply in the market regarding Lithium. There was more production of Lithium than the market needed. People got over eager and there were a lot of lower quality locations that started production by lower quality at higher cost that will only be economically feasible if the prices remained high. And so now what the market is doing is that a lot of these operations are shutting down, that Lithium operations that are shutting down, when it doesn't make sense to produce Lithium at these prices. Current Lithium operations are the ones that continue production are operating at a loss. And if you look at Piedmont Lithium specifically, if you look at yesterday, for example, they pulled their application for a US government loan. And their reasoning was that we don't want to pay the hourly rate that it costs for consultants to actually work on this loan application. We want to conserve our cash as much as possible. I can see why investors are spooked by that. That being said, I don't think that this company is is going to go bankrupt for a number of different reasons. Number one, the fact that they are being as cash conscious as they are, is I think a good sign. Yes, they really have to tighten their belts in this very tough period that we've been in with regards to Lithium prices. And they've laid off a third of their workforce. It's tough times for this company for sure. But that's why they're being valued as cheaply as they are. Like I said, for one of their projects, admittedly their largest one, the estimate for the net present value was $2 billion in 2021. Yes, prices have come down. But is the need for Lithium no longer there? Is the trend for electrification no longer there? Is the trend for batteries and storing energy no longer there? I don't think so. And Piedmont Lithium is not alone in its tightening of the belt. So if you look at Core Lithium, for example, this is from Piedmont Lithium's investor presentation. Core Lithium decided to temporarily suspend mining operations in one of its locations. Lying town, the company has commenced a review of the planned expansion and associated ramp up of Kathleen Value to preserve capital and reduce the new term funding requirements for the project. Fiscal year 24, this is for Taliesin Lithium. Production guidance has been revised to between 1.3 and 1.4 previously, 1.4 to 1.5 of spottamine concentrates at Richburg. That's not a cancelled project. This is Alber Marley. It's not a cancelled project. It's been delayed. We hope to work out a solution, but it requires better pricing. Minimal resources says we're not early in a hurry to carry on. We're just going to pack up and move, sit and have a look and see where the price goes. So all of these Lithium companies are cutting back because the prices are so low. However, this cannot continue because the fact of the matter is these facts remain the same. When you're looking at EV sales and their anticipated growth, if you look at 2024 and 2025, 2030, if you look at the battery pack sizes, energy storage systems, they're all going upwards. So Lithium production has to increase, but it can't increase at current prices. So eventually the supply glut that was created in 2021, we're going to get rid of that. That's going to be flustered through the system. And the rate of demand for Lithium for all these different use cases is continuing to grow and it will probably grow at faster rates than it has in 2022 and 2023. And when supply is stagnant and demand is growing, the price is going to go up. If you look at Piedmont Lithium in particular, something that's very, I think, an asset for the company is the fact that it is one of very few companies that's operating in North America. 60% of the world's Lithium comes from China. Piedmont Lithium is one of the very few companies operating in and doing its mining in North America. And there are so many factories in North America that are going to need Lithium. If there's any sort of back and forth in tariffs between the United States and China, Piedmont's assets are going to be valued really richly because they're located in the United States. They don't have to worry about tariffs between the US and China. And certainly the trend seems to be pointing towards more hostility between the US and China regarding trade. And if you look at the projections here, so announced annual Gigafactory demand and future US Lithium ion supply, US battery plants expected to require 40x current US Lithium hydroxide capacity. 40x, you can see Gigafactory demand and compare it to Piedmont Lithium plant capacity versus their current capacity. And you can see the imbalance there between these numbers. This is, I think, very bullish for Piedmont. That being said, yes, it is going through a very tough time. Yes, cash is an issue. However, I think we're at the closer to the end of these tough times than we are towards the beginning. And rates coming down signals that cash is going to be easier to come by. And it's possible that one of the reasons Piedmont Lithium, and this is complete speculation, but it's possible that one of the reasons Piedmont Lithium suspended its application for a loan is that, and we saw this in the Lithium industry, there may be a partnership that's being worked on behind the scenes that could provide the financing needed. So GM contracted with a Lithium mining company to provide it with Lithium not too long ago. And there was a contract wherein there was financing provided by GM for the capital expenditure. So maybe there's something like that going on behind the scenes for Piedmont. Yes, it is a risky position to take Lithium prices. We don't know how long they'll stay as low as they are. I do think that Lithium prices will go up again, eventually. The supply and demand dynamics suggest that this will happen and show a lot of costs. But based on that, I think that right now we're looking at something that is undervalued. It's risky because we don't know when prices will rebound. But I think what's going to happen is that if prices rebound even by a small amount, but they rebound and start heading upwards for a long enough period of time, sentiment among investors is going to change such that the assets of these Lithium companies are going to be viewed in a completely different light. Right now, since prices continue to go down, I think the assets are being discounted much more aggressively than they need to be. But if we just get some price stability and then heading northward, even if it's not by a large amount, I think that may be enough to shift investor sentiment around these companies and evaluations that they assign to them. The second thing, the second stock I'd like to tell you about is the stock I told you yesterday about the BitDeer technology group. Down 10% today, why? Bitcoin was down. That's basically the only reason. However, I think management is sending as clear a signal as can be sent here when BitDeer technology groups and announces an equity buyback for 10 million worth of its shares. The technology group announces a share repurchase program under the program the company will repurchase up to 10 million worth of its class A ordinary shares. The program will be valid till September 8, 2025. So I think BitDeer management, because it recently just raised 170 million, I think they were caught off guard by the stock price. And they're like, wait a second, we didn't know the stock price was going to trade for this. Let's buy it back when it's trading for this much, maybe double our money and not too long a period. It's already up to two and a half or close to two and a half percent after hours. But I like it when my buying patterns are the same as the management's buying patterns. So I think that insiders are putting their money someplace and buying back their stock. I think a rational investor should listen, should pay a good attention to that. All right, and let's talk about another company. I have members now on bullish on Taiwan semiconductor. So this is a company that has been, I think, suppressed substantially by the fact that they have the word Taiwan in their name. And we all know about the geopolitical risks associated with that. But they've, in practicality, they are striving to drop that from their name and be less reliant on manufacturing just on that island. And so one of their projects is in Arizona. So there's some positive news coming out from that. So TSMC's Arizona trials put planned productivity on par with Taiwan. So looks like they are expanding successfully, diversifying their geographical exposure. And that's fantastic. I think that its geographical concentration in Taiwan was a big reason for its undervaluation when compared to other companies in the field. So today it was down 4%. I don't think it was a bad idea to pick up some shares. It's certainly in the buy zone for us on our watch list. So all this to say, I need something, I give credit to my parents for this. Something I remember about my childhood is that they would often give me, my parents would often give me compliments. Like, well, you're smart or you're tough or something like that. And I would push back because I know they're my parents and they would like to, every parent likes to compliment their children. And so I wanted to know, is this genuine or is it just them wanting me to feel good or what? So I would always ask them, why are you saying that? And something that they were always very good at is that they would have a lot of examples where they would say, remember when you did this? Remember when you did that? Remember when you did this other thing? And they would support their claim with these examples. And that would allow me to actually accept the information that they were giving me. Something I remember fondly in a love preserve my parents and all of your loved ones. But it's important for me when I come out here following the same principle to not just say, hey, don't be worried, don't panic, have a good weekend, ignore macro. It's important for me to actually give you the reasons why I'm saying this. And hopefully I was successful in doing that in this live. If I was, then I would really appreciate if you left and become a PIF member if you aren't already. Let's take questions. Lubna says, thanks again Yasmin. I'm glad you're learning a lot from my lives. Lubna says, Samalekom, a brother I can, is NVIDIA a long-term stock? Is NVIDIA a long-term stock? Or should I sell it and invest in other companies? Oh, okay. Because we don't have an investment in NVIDIA. But yeah, I think NVIDIA is a good company. I did, Lubna, I did rate it as uncomfortable because of its association with the SRAI, make of that what you will. But if you just ask me from an investment perspective, I think it's a solid company. But because of their associations, I'm passed on it. Love for humanity says, thanks for putting the heart out of these with regards to PLO. It's my pleasure and in a lot of things work out. It's going to take patience. By the way, it's times like this when I think it's important to mention the following. Why do you think you get paid as an investor? What are you getting paid for? The reason why you're getting paid, the reason why you're earning money is because you're able to stomach days like today. That's what you're getting paid for. Now, a very easy way to stomach days like today is just not to pay attention, right? That's why everyone who knows a bit about the market emphasizes time in the market versus timing the market. But for people who are paying attention, this is why you're getting paid. The cost of outsized returns is outsized volatility. This is the reason for your returns. This is par for the course. It's not something unusual, and inshallah, it works out very well for everyone. So here's a salam alaikum. I appreciate the insight on a rough day. Well, I'll preserve your parents and your parents as well. I'd love to hear that. It's my pleasure to hear. As I mentioned, guys, enjoy your weekend. inshallah, everything will be okay. It'll be better than okay. Leave it if you enjoyed this live. Become a PIF member and join our family if you haven't already. Until next time, make sure to take care of yourself. salam alaikum and peace be upon you all.