As-salamu alaykum everyone, I hope you are doing well. Today is Thursday, September 26, and Bitcoin is flirting with $65,000. We actually mentioned yesterday that $65,000 was the range that it needed to beat in order for it to overcome the speed bump in options, execution prices. Getting above that level will be key for us. Today we had a number of very important economic data come out. And the summary of it, the gist of it is that it was bullish for markets. So if we look at the details of the information that we got, Q2 GDP was in line with expectations. Q2 Core PCE was in line. That's what looks at inflation. Consumer spending was amiss. Jobless claims were a beat. So the economy is doing well. It does appear so far that the Fed is going to get the soft landing that it was hoping for. At least this is what the data suggests so far. Continuing jobless claims. So initial jobless claims, which was the beat, is the new people that are applying for unemployment benefits. Continuing jobless claims are the people who were applying for unemployment benefits and are continuing to apply. That number was amiss. Durable goods orders was a beat. The most important numbers were the initial jobless claims because this is used as a leading indicator for what is to come. That was a beat. We got less than expected. So initial jobless claims were actually 218,000. We were expecting 224,000. So a beat of 6,000 there. And Q2 inflation was as expected. That was a very important number to keep an eye out on as well. So overall, as I mentioned, bullish for the markets. And we saw this bullishness in the reaction of markets. So as you can see, we got green across the board. The S&P is up a quarter percentage point. Dow is up half a percentage point. And Nasdaq is up a quarter percentage point as well. So things are looking on the up and up for risk assets. I've been saying this for a while and alhamdulillah, it does seem like the data is confirming this. Now something that is peculiar to me, I know it's very early to be looking at this, but I wanted to see out of curiosity what the market was pricing in for interest rate cuts, the probabilities of interest rate cuts in the next Fed meeting in November. And it looks like it's pricing in a 0% chance of keeping interest rates as they are, even after the economic data that we got this morning, a 44% chance of a 25 base point cut, 55 base point cut, 55 base point chance of a 50 base point cut. That seems odd to me because if the economy is doing well and inflation seems to be headed in the right direction, why is the Fed cutting interest rates? Can someone explain that to me? I think one of the possible reasons is that the interest rate, interest expense is just getting out of control. And even though the Fed has a dual mandate and it does appear that current economic conditions are supportive of the Fed achieving that dual mandate, it is being influenced by the fact that the debt burden on the United States is so large that the interest expense just doesn't allow for interest rates to be high for a long period of time. And this debt needs to be refinanced and therefore interest rates need to come down. Yeah, I understand there's lagging effects of higher interest rates that are perhaps hitting the economy now. And even though we haven't seen a slowdown yet, that we may see a slowdown in the future as these lagging effects take hold. However, the question I have is the Fed keeps telling us that it's data dependent and the data is telling it that there's no need to cut interest rates. So what gives? What's going on? Perhaps, as I mentioned, the interest expense is just too high. All right, so let's look at who were the movers and shakers in the world of stocks today. And the big mover was Micron Technology. I spoke about this company before. We'll talk about their earnings and what they reported yesterday. It's on our watch list for PIF. And so I will be updating our buy and sell prices for Micron Technology after its earnings report yesterday. But it's up 15% today. It's flirting with 110. It lost 40% previously before this jump. It lost 40% since its last earnings update, even though its earnings update was a positive one in terms of beating, and I'm talking about last quarter, beating top and bottom line estimates. But their guidance was weak. But Micron, their management, it typically has pretty reserved guidance and sets itself up to beat that guidance. What was really bullish about this stock this time around was the fact that they had really strong guidance for next quarter. And if Micron has really strong guidance for next quarter, given its habit of beating its guidance, that's very bullish. And so the stock reacted accordingly. So this is just another view of Micron Technology. So one thing that has kept me away from classifying Micron as a strong buy is you really have to get the cycle for Micron right. This is not a buy and hold play at all. Semiconductors, they go through cycles. One part of the cycle, demand outstrips supply in a big way. And then supply tries to catch up, at which point demand starts to fall off. And you have this supply glut and you go through this period where companies are trying to get through their inventory and you have depressed stock prices during that time. And so Micron is very susceptible to this cycle. So you really have to be on top of the semiconductor cycle if you want to play this game. This is a swing trade stock if there ever was one. That being said, if we look at the company's numbers here, pretty good. However, we'll talk about this more. Their net income with revenue at close to$7 billion, net income at only $300 million. That's not really what I like to see. I like to see net income being at least 10% or more. I like easy ways to make money. 10% or more here would be around$700 million. But at $300 million, it's below my line there, below my cutoff line. And so even though they had some really exciting predictions for the future and for their company during their earnings call, it's still something that I'm hesitant to invest in, a company I'm to invest in because of their net profit margin being low, below my threshold. And another thing that I think keeps me away from Micron is the fact that its total liabilities aren't high. If you look at their cash and short-term investments, $8 billion versus total liabilities, $22 billion. All of this is, by the way, May 2024. Let's look at their most recent investor presentation for a bit more color on this company. So Micron delivered strong finish to fiscal year 2024 with fiscal Q4 revenue at the high end of their guidance, gross margins and EPS above the high end of their guidance ranges. Micron's fiscal 2024 revenue grew over 60%. We expanded company gross margins by over 30%. So gross margins, so that top line there where it takes revenue and cost of goods sold, that improved substantially. But this is also a cycle for the company. So they will go through cycles of really strong gross margins and then have a really weak gross margins. We'll talk about that. Their two main products, DRAM and NAND, continue to be their only sources of revenue, really, with DRAM being around 75% of their revenue, NAND being around 25%. This is basically the random access memory and flash memory chips. Robust data center demand. We talked about data centers yesterday, guys, and I really think everything that touches data center is going to have no problem finding enough demand for the foreseeable future. And so talking about data centers and AI as they did in their presentation really speaks to investors in a big way. A robust data center demand is exceeding our leading edge node supply and is driving overall healthy supply demand dynamics. As we move through calendar 2025, we expect a broadening of demand drivers, complementing strong demand in the data center. We look forward to delivering a substantial revenue record with significantly improved profitability in fiscal 2025, beginning with our guidance for record quarterly revenue in fiscal Q1. So their expectations for Q1 2025 are extremely strong. And the slide they had, that was what investors wanted to see. Specifically, I'll point out this bullet point. So multiple vectors will drive AI memory demand over the coming years. Growing model sizes and input token requirements, multi-modality, multi-agent solutions, continuing training, and the proliferation of inference workloads from cloud to edge. So not just the sort of main hubs, cloud centers that are going to be doing inference, but even the edge products, the handheld devices of consumers, they're going to be doing inference as well. And this requires a lot of AI memory, which can provide. Now going through their financial summary here, this is where you can see the cyclicality of this company. So if you look at the Q4 2023 numbers, you can see their gross margin was negative 9%. And this is really when you want to invest the Q3. So last quarter. So they're just heads up their fiscal quarters don't align with calendar quarters. So their last quarter, which was Q3, their gross margin was 28%. This quarter it was 36%. So we're talking a 12 months difference and their gross margins improved by net 45%. They went from negative 9% to plus 36%. Now the question really that investors need to ask themselves is how much do I think they can maintain this type of margin right now? And if we look at the, the percentage of revenue, negative 29% for Q4, 23% of revenue as a net income, that is net income was negative 29, 20, 23. And it was plus 10% Q3 2024 and plus 17% in this most recently reported quarter. So for the quarter, yeah, they did exceed my threshold for net income over the last year. They have not. Now the question is moving forward. Is this something that will continue? And it really depends on what their, what moat they build around their product and the pricing power that they have. Now, I think that if demand outstrips supply by enough, even commodities can have really strong net income and they can have a really strong net income margins that is. But the question is to what extent are Micron's products differentiated and to what extent they have pricing power. So far, it does seem like their product is almost like a commodity. It's not really differentiated. The differentiation comes through pricing. And so you have the top three providers. Samsung, I think is the biggest one competing on price, but not necessarily competing on anything technology related. They're basically interchangeable, their products with one another. And that's a competition I don't like to be in. I think the numbers that they're posting right now are really healthy because there's so much demand for their products that they can have a healthy net income margins. What the future holds in terms of demand, their forecast is really strong for demand. So maybe they can keep this up for the foreseeable future. And maybe in this foreseeable future, they come out with a product that is differentiated from a technology perspective. But it's tough to say for sure. And I'd rather go with something that is an obvious yes, a screaming buy, as opposed to something that will probably do well, but I'm not really sure. So that's my take on Micron. As I said, it's probably going to do well moving forward. Is it better than what we're invested in right now in our portfolios in terms of upside? Probably not. I think probably what we have in our portfolio right now will do better. So with that, I hope you leave a like. Thank you for everyone who left a like. I saw a considerable increase in likes in last live. So thank you for everyone who did that. And by the way, if you'd like to follow our portfolios, become a PIF member, link to do so is in the description. Let's take some questions very quickly. Abed says, Salam, are Bitcoin miner stocks still a good idea? Yeah, absolutely. I think you're seeing that today in their performance. At least ours, we're doing pretty darn well. Khaled says, Salam, brother. I hope all is well. Thanks for all these sessions. It's my pleasure. Khaled says, if one buys a comfortable stock, it goes up and then for some reason, it's no longer comfortable from a Halal perspective and you sell it with a profit, should one keep the profit? I think if the reason for it becoming uncomfortable happens near the time that you sold, then the profit that you made was actually during the time that it was comfortable, should be fine. The general idea is that anything you think you made from something that was uncomfortable is what you want to give away. I'm holding Micron and I am down. Do you recommend selling it? I would probably, I'm not going to give investment advice, but I can only say what I have. And I think you're a PIF member, so you can look at what we have and look at our watch list and the buy and sell prices that we assigned for Micron that should come out later today, Inshallah. I think you may want to re-look at SUI. They're doing some major changes. Okay, Abdurrahman, we will take a look at SUI again. I know that it's been one of the biggest movers. The fact of the matter is I'm looking at daily transactions and Solana is still way, way ahead. They've got a gaming hardware and their general sentiment that it's giving Solana vibes. It's giving Solana vibe. Yeah, me and my wife have this running joke where X is giving so-and-so vibes or trying to keep up with the younger generation. Okay, guys, thank you all for coming. Leave a like if you enjoyed this live. As-salamu alaykum and peace be upon you all.