As-salamu alaykum, everyone. I hope you are doing well. Today is Friday, October 4th, and the market has bounced back in a big way on the heels of two positive news events. We'll talk about them. We still have the geopolitical tensions in the Middle East that will likely introduce some volatility into the market, at least for the next few days. But there is a lot to be happy about today. So number one, the port strike has ended and workers agreed to a tentative deal on wages and also extended their contract to January 15th. This to me now, if I was negotiating on behalf of the workers, I think I would not have accepted this because basically they agreed on the wages issue. They agreed on a, they were offered 50% increase. They were asking for 77. They met in the middle at 61 and a half wage increase over the next six years. They still haven't agreed on automation and limiting automation in their work and decided, okay, let's just extend our current contract to January 15th and then we'll talk about it. The reason I wouldn't have accepted this if I was negotiating on behalf of the workers is because January 15th happens to be after the election. So they no longer have the added pressure on the port authorities to reach a deal because of the political consequences of not reaching a deal. That I think will probably not play in their favor. The fact that they're negotiating until after the elections and not taking advantage of the pressure that the elections could have brought on their side. That being said, an agreement was reached and that's good news for the market and for the economy really, generally. The second piece of good news that we got today is that we had a monster jobs report. We were expecting non-farm payrolls to grow in September 150,000 jobs. In reality, they grew 254,000 jobs. So a massive beat and the unemployment rate ticked down to 4.1% despite expectations for it to hold at 4.2%. Now there is a corollary to this, which is that the Fed has less incentive to be really aggressive in terms of monetary policy easing. And in fact, if you look at the probabilities that the market is assigning to different rate cut scenarios, the market is assigning basically a 98% chance of a 25 base point cut in November and only a 2% chance of a 50 base point cut in November. So this is not necessarily positive for the markets on its own. That being said, the fact that it does seem like the economy is headed towards a soft landing is a positive. And so unless basically we get a situation where we have rising inflation or a hard landing and these scenarios are forecasted, unless we get those things, it does seem like the market is just going to continue chugging along upwards. Now, the one main source of volatility remaining, aside from obviously the elections, in our macro picture is the escalations in the Middle East. I'm sure you've heard Iran has retaliated to the many killings of its agents in the region with anti-ballistic missiles. Israel is going to retaliate to that and it's likely going to be a much bigger retaliation than the initial strike. I'm sure they won't use anti-ballistic missiles and their casualty count will probably be more than just one person. They'll probably hit the nuclear sites of Iran. Why not? It does seem like Iran doesn't really have much to offer in terms of fighting. And longer term, this could put real pressure on the Iranian regime if it's embarrassed to a very large extent because the Iranian people are proud people. They're some of the highest IQ people on earth and I don't think this level of embarrassment is going to sit well with them. Maybe this spells the end, whether knowingly or unknowingly, on the part of Israel. Maybe just the sheer amount of embarrassment that Iran has to deal with spells the end for the regime there. Who knows? That being said, I happen not to think that this conflict is going to impact the markets in a really big and sustained way. I think that it will get wrapped up and decided rather quickly. But who knows? Obviously, when you're dealing with violence, it's very hard to predict. It's still a source of volatility and something to keep an eye out for when we're talking about macro. Now, let's look at the performances of different assets. So starting with top 10 here in terms of market cap for crypto, Bitcoin is up in the last 24 hours, close to 62,000. So a bit of recovery there. Solana at 142, Doge close to 11, Toncoin$5.36. A bit of a recovery. I think the markets are still bracing for what is going to happen in the Middle East. And also they're considering the new or the reduced probability for 50 basis point cut in November and perhaps the lesser incentive that the Fed has for easing monetary policy in an aggressive way. As it relates to equities, generally we're positive. Tesla is up 2.4%. We are days away from the much anticipated Robotaxi event on 10.10. And I will obviously bring you my detailed analysis of what was revealed and what it means for Tesla's stock price. Other prominent names, AMD is up 2.53%. PayPal is up 2.19%. We did see in the last two or three days, this block here, Energy was up in a big way today, cooled down in terms of its appreciation. As it relates to the world of LaLaLand and alts or altcoins, does seem like altcoins are enjoying the couple pieces of good news that we got in macro and have recovered some of the losses that they have incurred in the previous week. Although over for look at the last week, they are mostly down still a ways to go to recover what was lost. Now one company that I get asked about a lot is Rivian and they were in the news today. Rivian's production forecast hits a bump because of supply shortages and it sent shares tumbling. What do we mean by their production forecast hitting a bump? The company is revising its annual production guidance to the range of 47,000 to 49,000 vehicles when it was prior to the revision 57,000 vehicles. Now if we look at this company and their financials, so today they're down 6%. The market cap of this company is $10 billion. Now if we look at the financials for this company, revenue is just a billion dollars quarterly. That's really not the main concern here. If we look at this company's numbers, so operating expenses in the last quarter went up more than revenue did, so that's putting pressure on margins. Not that margins were positive in the first place and net income is negative 1.46 billion. So revenue is 1.16, net income is negative 1.46 billion. So oddly enough, the downward revision of their production is actually going to cause them to lose less money since they're losing money on every car that they produce. So this is never a business you want to be a part of. These numbers don't give me any confidence that this is a company that's going to make it. Making cars is extremely hard business to be in. I would never invest even in Tesla unless it had other non-car sources of revenue. Specifically, I'm talking about software and FSD and energy and other higher margin businesses. But just producing cars is a very small margin. Most car companies end up filing for bankruptcy at one point or another. Probably Rivian is in that same boat. Cash and short-term investments. Although their car is a good car, they make a good car, don't get me wrong, but they're just losing money on every car that they make. June 2024, cash and short-term investments was 7.87 billion. Now, if we recall, they are losing. So you may say, oh, that's a good number. But their net income is negative 1.5 billion just in the last quarter, which is crazy. That means if we were to annualize, that's negative 6 billion. Annually, cash and short-term investments, just shy of 8 billion. Not too much of a cushion. Not great, really. If we look at everything negative, return on assets, return on capital. If you look at their cash flows, they're obviously losing money in operations. They're losing three quarters of a billion just by keeping their doors open. Cash from investing. So they have to continuously invest in capital expenditures, make additional investments in order to scale and hopefully reach profitability. That's taking in the last quarter, an additional 500 million. Cash from financing. This means that they're raising money either through debt or equity. If you're a shareholder, congrats on providing liquidity for the company to continue its money-burning operation. So they raised a billion dollars in the last quarter. The net change in cash, even though they raised a billion dollars, the net change in cash is 216 million in the negative. They have less of a balance. Even though they raised a billion and some change last quarter, their cash balance fell 216 million. Free cash flow, negative 718 million. So not a pretty picture. Not something that I would invest in. Why wouldn't I invest in it? Because there isn't a gun to my head that's telling me that I have to invest in it. There's so many companies out there that one can invest in. I don't know why someone would put money in a company like Rivian given the financials I just went over. Maybe lightning strikes, it works out. I'm just saying the probabilities of this working out, having a happy ending seems slim. Now let's look at a company that I'm more interested in. Iris Energy. They reported their September investor update today, and it was a good one. So they mined 347 Bitcoin. The electricity cost per Bitcoin is 23,600. Sorry, I can't talk today. 23,600 is the electricity cost per Bitcoin, but that doesn't take into account the massive capital expenditures that they have to do in order to buy the hardware needed to mine Bitcoin. And therefore, I would take this number with a grain of salt. A less experienced observer may look at this and say, oh, the price of Bitcoin is 62,000. It's mining it at an electricity cost of 23,600. So there's clearly a great profit margin there. And that's not really the case because it has to depreciate all of the capital investments that they made. Now, good news, they did reach 21 exahash, which is one exahash more than what they were promising in the third quarter. And they're on track to reach 31 exahash in the fourth quarter of 2024. They've also expanded their AI cloud services. They've bought more GPUs, H100s and H200s. And the AI cloud services is where the margins get really juicy and really attractive. And it's estimated to contribute 10% to the run rate earning by year. And that's a huge increase in the contribution of AI cloud services, which was basically close to zero, just going back to the first half of this year. Data centers, they have 360 megawatts operating, 510 megawatts is expected to be operational in 2024. And then about four times that much in the next year and a half. And monetization conversations ongoing. If you recall yesterday when I talked about Bitdeer and the assessment of their Ohio site and that passing the assessment, IOS Energy is doing the same in terms of assessing its monetization and their facilities in the way of data centers. And positive report there should be bullish for the company. So let's look at some of the key metrics here. This is something that I'm really impressed by. So obviously the average operating hash rate is increasing. Look from July to August to September, it went from nine to 10 to 16. Bitcoin mined is increasing all the time. And that's not a easy feat to pull off because you have to beat the rate of expansion of other miners. You have to beat the rate of expansion in the network hash rate in order to increase the number of Bitcoin mined. And that's what IOS Energy is doing. So the management is really showing solid signs of competence in terms of execution. July 222, August 245, September 347 Bitcoin mined. So that's really great. The hardware profit margin for IOS Energy, if you look, July was 1%, August was 51%, September was 62%. That's great. The margins are going in the right direction. Revenue per Bitcoin, that's obviously not in its hand, but it has been increasing on account of Bitcoin's price increasing. Something that is in its hand, which is very encouraging to see, is the electricity cost per Bitcoin is going down. So if you look, July 61,000, August 30,000, September 23,000. And here's the comparison that I wanted to bring to your attention, why I think that the AI Cloud Services business and its expanding contribution is a positive for the company. If you look at the AI Cloud Services, the hardware profit margin is 98% compared to 62%, the hardware profit margin for the Bitcoin mining business. So it's an easier way to make money than the Bitcoin mining businesses. So we mentioned 21 current, 31 by the end of 2024, 50 by the end of 2025. Probably that number is going to be revised upwards. AI Cloud Services, we're hoping we get to 10% by the end of the year. Data centers continue to expand. And for Q4 2024, Childress phase three, they're going to add another 150 megawatts. Data centers, you can see here what they got under construction. And a lot of it is, so they have 150 in the fourth quarter of 2024. And then additional, this is just in the Texas location to have an additional 300 and then 100 after that. And the total, so development sites in Texas, USA should reach 1400 in terms of megawatt capacity. And there's an additional pipeline of more than a thousand megawatts. And they're saying here, and this number should increase with time as well, more than 3000 megawatts for the company. That is what they should have access to and infrastructure built for. So all of this, really good, really good update for the company and the company is doing well. Check on their stock today, up close to 7%. So congratulations to holders, congratulations to PIF community. And let's go to questions very quickly. Zuhair Chocolate, Waalaikumsalam, always nice to see you guys. Rashad, it's a good thing that you are not the union head. Yeah, I guess so. Khalid says, I don't understand the demand on limiting automation. It's like insisting on having a horse and a buggy when the industry was moving to automobiles. Honestly, I agree with you 100%. There's no reason to do something that could be done better by automation. It's going to happen eventually. So might as well swallow the bitter pill sooner rather than later, because later it's going to be more painful. So with innovation, and there's always going to be, I think, a role for humans to play. The task of humans is to find where they can be useful. And so if a particular avenue where you were spending your efforts proves to no longer be needed, then the best thing to do is not fight that and just try and see where else can you be useful. And that transition is really difficult. You have to learn new things and get out of your comfort zone. And I understand all of that. But I think over the longer run, you'll be much happier doing that. Rashad, Salam, Rakan, when we talk about hard or soft landing, we are referring to the economy. Yeah, exactly. And not the stock market. That's exactly correct, Rashad. Halal investments, only been two soft landings in the last 50 years. It's a tight window for the Fed. I would not bet on it from a prudent point of view. Yeah, if we're going off of the reports so far, things are looking encouraging. We'll see what happens. Sheikh Adnan says, Salam Alaikum, looking great. Thank you, Sheikh Adnan. I appreciate that. I've been really focusing on, you can't see my incredible physique right now, but I've really been focusing on working out first thing in the morning and just prioritizing that. And I encourage everyone to do that. It makes you feel a lot better for the rest of the day. And there's nothing more important, really. What are we? Our jobs aren't more important than our health. So really encourage everyone to prioritize their health, Inshallah. PIF is the goat. I'm grateful to Allah for him. Thank you so much, trader. I really appreciate that. Brother Rakan, do you foresee other industries following the port strike example to try to increase employee bargaining power? I think if there's an opportunity for people to make more money, then they'll probably try to do it. Generally speaking, though, I'm not really much of a fan of unions. I'm more of a fan of competition. If you have an industry where there are multiple competing companies, then if you don't like the situation at one company, go to another company. These companies should be competing for talent and that should be what ensures workers' rights. But what happens is that the unions step in and instead of relying on competition between companies, we have unions strong-arming companies into doing things that don't make any financial sense. And that, I think, is inflationary. It's bad for the consumer. It's bad for workers over the long time because eventually, you're just kicking the can down the road. Eventually, these companies will end up not being competitive. I think there's just a net liability on society. We already saw this example with car companies in the United States. It used to be that car companies in the United States were extremely competitive. Unions came in and all of a sudden, foreign cars ate the lunch of a lot of US-based car companies. Most of them, I think only Ford, has not declared bankruptcy and they required bailouts from the government. I think unions had a lot to do with that. I'm not a big fan of unions. PLL is up 23%. Alhamdulillah. Alhamdulillah. I told you guys, obviously, I don't know. I don't know the future. I try to do the best I can, but I try to do what Allah ﷻ tells us to do, which is tawasaw bil haq, tawasaw bil sabr. Hold on to what is true and then be patient. You have to be patient. Alhamdulillah, I think this is what we did with PLL. Alhamdulillah, we're reaping the rewards. Does Lucid have only an upside since it's backed by a whole country which won't let it go bankrupt? That can only last for so long. I think eventually, you want to invest in companies that are self-sustaining. You don't want to invest in companies that have to continuously have an IV drip of cash in order to survive. There's so many other companies that are self-sustaining, that are cashflow positive, that are in secular trends, that are doing the right things, that are in industries where it's relatively easier to make money. Why would I ignore those companies and put money in a company that's essentially on life support? Chocolate says good points as well. JazakAllah khair. Thank you all for tuning in this week. If you did enjoy the lives this week, do leave a like. I duly appreciate that. And become a PIF member. Join our community. I think it'll pay off for you many times over, inshallah. And we'd love to have you in our community. The more good people we have in our community, the better our community becomes. Enjoy your Jummah. Enjoy your weekend. Until next time, make sure to take care of yourself. As-salamu alaykum and peace be upon you all.