The Practical Islamic Finance Podcast
The Practical Islamic Finance Podcast
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► More from PIF: https://linktr.ee/practicalislamicfinance
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In this episode, we will cover:
- Intro & Market Overview
- Economic Data: U.S. Growth & Inflation
- Crypto Update: Bitcoin & Dogecoin Trends
- Stock Spotlight: HIMS and HERS Health
- Investment Approach to Volatile Markets
- Q&A with Viewers
CONTACT US
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.
As-salamu alaykum, everyone. I've made it. Alhamdulillah. I hope you're doing well. Today is Wednesday, October thirtieth. And yet again, we are presented with an opportunity for HIMS and HERS stock to cash in on people's misunderstanding of what is going on with the stock, what this company is about. We'll talk about that in a second. But first, let's talk about Macro. Basically, the indices are flat. We got some economic news. We'll talk about that in a second. Russell, two thousand is up a smidge. VIX is up three point five percent. Tesla is at two sixty, holding steady at that level. Rest of our watch list is basically in the red. We have PLL up two point eleven percent. We talked about PLL yesterday. So good timing there by us. HEMS is down thirteen point nine four percent. As I mentioned, we'll talk about why that is. But guys, let's keep everything in perspective here in terms of where we are level wise. Yeah, it's not Monday where we were literally printing money by the minute. But we're still at really elevated levels compared to where we were, you know, only a month ago. Assalamu alaikum, Zuhair. Nice to see you. Assalamu alaikum. Nice to see you. And BTC is close to seventy one thousand eight hundred. And exactly like I told you guys yesterday, seventy three thousand would be resistance for BTC. And we saw that it actually achieved all time highs, but it wasn't able to hold that level. So there's going to be a lot of back and forth at this level, I predict. But then we'll go higher, inshallah. Dogecoin is holding steady at sixteen cents per token and Sol is at one seventy three. So an opportunity to pick up at cheaper prices than what we've had in the past two days is what I'm seeing here. Let's talk about the economic numbers and whether they change anything about my assessment. So the U.S. economy grew at two point eight percent. This was the third quarter gross growth, that is, which is less than expected. Yes, but it's still two point eight percent, which is not bad. And it's certainly not a recession. So there is some strength still in the U.S. economy. Now, two thirds of that strength is coming from consumer spending. The other third is coming from federal government outlays. And so because there is somewhat of not meeting expectations in terms of growth, there is still a reason for the Fed to cut interest rates in November and December, as the market is predicting, especially in light of the fact that if we look at our inflation numbers, we did get some good news. So the personal consumption expenditures price index, the Fed's preferred inflation gauge, rose one point five percent for the quarter. And remember, the Fed's target is two percent. We got a one point five percent reading. So that's good. Right. But the Fed does like to exclude food and energy because those are very volatile. And so in order to actually keep track of the longer term trend, it likes to look at core PC. Now, core PC was two point two percent versus the two percent target. My question is, who cares? The two percent number is a made up number anyway. Two point two percent. Cry me a river. I don't really care. So in this regard, I think inflation has largely been largely been controlled. And reigned in and therefore there is some maneuver maneuvering room that the fed has. If inflation had not been under control, then we're in a tough spot where, you know, the economy isn't really doing too poorly. And inflation is still not under control. Why are we cutting interest rates? But since the economy is showing signs of slowing down and the inflation picture is under control, there is an argument for the Fed. to cut interest rates which is the main driver in this period for the prices of risk assets which is the liquidity levels I've been saying this all year now just follow liquidity levels you'll figure out what the projection for risk assets is now we did get some jobs data yesterday that did confirm what I just said With regards to the economy, we are seeing a slowdown, but it's still a strong economy. So, for example, the job openings number that we got yesterday. Yes, it was down. It was the lowest number since July twenty twenty one. But. If you look at the job openings numbers. Before twenty twenty one, we're way above those levels. So we did have, you know, the pandemic and coming out of the pandemic and that kind of. Mixing of the jobs picture and the economy, economic picture and the stimulus that came with the with the pandemic. But if you look historically before the pandemic, the job openings number that we got is not bad at all. So we are seeing weakening in the economy, as I mentioned, but it's not at bad levels. And I think the Fed keeps in the back of its mind that the impacts of its rate hikes are lagging. the economy and therefore there is a separation between the the rate hike and the full effect of those rate hikes impacting the economy and therefore what we're seeing right now may be foretelling of what is to come for the economy and therefore there is some urgency to actually ease monetary policy and not wait for the full impact of the rate hikes to manifest on the economy. All right. So hopefully that's clear with regards to the probabilities for interest rate cuts. There wasn't much change in them. And that's really what we wanted to see after the economic data releases for this week. Now, we're not over with these data releases. We still have data points coming out Thursday and Friday. But... so far so good the probabilities of rate cuts are basically as they were prior to the prior to these readings so we have close to a ninety seven percent chance of twenty five base point cut in november and then seventy three percent chance of another um or a fifty base point cut by december All right, so looking at the S&P and what is up today, Google had some monster earnings. Microsoft reports earnings after close of the markets today. And semiconductors are taking it on the chin. Energy is doing pretty well. Perhaps this is associated with the VIX spiking a bit. As it relates to crypto, we can see in the past thirty days, the most sound crypto out there, the Tesla of cryptos, the Bitcoin of cryptos that people don't recognize as being the Bitcoin of cryptos, Doge is up forty two percent in the last month, BTC I'm really surprised that it was even courageous enough to show its face, considering how much it underperformed Doge up only thirteen percent in the last thirty days. I'm joking, of course. Now, in terms of these returns, just a word of caution here. If you're looking at these returns and are like, hey, BTC is only up thirteen percent. We're getting started on this bull run. Maybe I should go down the market cap. uh schedule here and look for smaller cap cryptos keep in mind most cryptos are doing horribly most crypto btc is beating the vast majority of crypto so unless you have some sort of insight about a crypto that you know makes you very confident that it's going to beat bitcoin then I would not go too heavy into alts obviously with crypto you have to understand that everything with crypto is a meme coin all coins are meme coins and bitcoin maxis you can send me emails if you'd like but bitcoin is a meme coin in the sense that the the price of bitcoin is a function of the strength of the network that bitcoin has so the more people trust Bitcoin, the more people are connected to its network, the higher the value of this network. That's really where the value of Bitcoin comes and why it's very hard to replicate because it has so many users now and it has so many different nodes. which means that this is not a cash flowing asset. This is not something that, you know, if people just decide doesn't have a price, we'll still command the price because it is in and of itself useful without people determining that it is by using it. And so all cryptocurrency is meme coin. It goes up and down. Uh, in price, not based on the cash flows, uh, but based on. How many people are talking about it at the time? How many people trust it? How big is its network? How many nodes does it has have? And really the only use case for cryptocurrency that has proven to make sense is its use case as both a store of value and a means of exchange. So. I say this because when you're betting on something else, on some other cryptocurrency, I have yet to see a cryptocurrency that is producing enough fees, enough net profit for the basically shareholders of the project, which are the token holders in the case of crypto, to justify the valuation that's being given to that project. The only... If you look at other... commenters on crypto, other YouTubers, social media personalities, the only way they value crypto is not by the cash flows but by comparing it to other cryptos. Well, you know, Sol has revenue that is, you know, half of what ETH is. I'm just giving a random example, but it's at, you know, one fourth the market capitalization. Therefore, it's undervalued. This is what you hear in terms of valuing cryptocurrencies. You don't hear, oh, well, this is how much I think holders of cryptocurrencies are going to reap in terms of cash flows. This is my projection for the growth of these cash flows over the next few years. This is how I'm going to discount these cash flows. This is why I'm using this discount rate to discount those cash flows to find out the current present value of this token. That's what you don't hear. It's either comparables, valuations, and it's talk about how much publicity each cryptocurrency is getting. So I don't know if I was able to explain that in any degree of making it understandable. I am sick. So my ideas are fuzzy right now. So bear with me while I get through this live. All right. So if we look at the categories here for cryptocurrencies and how they've done in the last month, meme coins are have done the best in the last month meme coins are up uh nineteen percent followed by uh bitcoin it's up thirteen point five percent and by the way this you know just to further drive home the point that bitcoin performs better than the vast majority of other cryptocurrencies you can see bitcoin is up thirteen point five percent but if you look at the other categories defy I don't know what that is. Outerlands Fundamental Index, smart contract platforms, Ethereum, NASDAQ, S&P, AI tokens. Bitcoin performed better than all of those. So it was the second largest gainer in terms of category, if you consider Bitcoin a category in and of itself. Second behind only meme coins. All right, let's talk about the stock of the day, HIMS and HERS Health. ticker symbol hymns, because I guess they haven't been sued yet by the woke crowd for just having hymns, not having hers in their ticker symbol. But it is down fourteen percent today. And the reason why it's down uh, is after, uh, Novo's some glue tide was taken off it off the shortage list. So for those who are unfamiliar, hims and hers has this online, um, pharma pharmaceutical service, basically where it provides, uh, different drugs. Now they're basically a legal online drug dealer and, uh, they provide, uh, often compounds of different drugs that are at a, and they provide them at a much cheaper price than the brand names. And obviously the brands, when they can, they try to get regulation to stop them from doing that. So shares of HIMS and HERS fell fifteen percent Wednesday following news that Novo Nordisk's weight loss drug Regovi is no longer considered to be in short supply in the U.S., which means that the compound that HIMS and HERS creates because of the exception that is made for medicines that are in short supply no longer applies for HIMS and maybe they will be told to discontinue their providing of GLP-I drugs. So that's why it's down today. And, you know, the bigger companies like Novo Nordisk are always campaigning for compound drugs to be discontinued. So, for example, Novo Nordisk asked the FDA to have semaglutide placed on the demonstrable difficulties for compounding list, arguing that compounded versions pose safety risks. Yeah, I'm sure that's why they're trying to stop compounding. medicines that are way cheaper than what they're selling. All right, so here's the point that I want to make about HIMSS if you're worried about your HIMSS position. And this is not financial advice, but this is how I'm thinking about this. Between two thousand nineteen and twenty twenty three, you can see that the revenue of this company, Tenext, And zero of this X in revenue was due to GLP-I. GLP-I is simply one example of a medicine that HEMS can bring online and sell at a cheaper price. And there is no shortage of other examples of much bigger, in fact, markets that HIMS can serve. And they'll always be markets that HIMS will serve and sometimes that can expand into. And sometimes there'll be regulation that stops it from creating some sort of drug. And that's to be expected when you're talking about pharmaceutical companies and pharmacies. That's to be expected now. My experience tells me as an investor that these are typically very good times to pick up shares. And especially considering HEMS is a heavily shorted stock, we often get really good opportunities when news like this comes out. So hair loss, mental health, diabetes, these are all multi-billion dollar markets that HIMS and HERS serves and can expand into with more offerings. And the important thing is to understand that HIMS has proven with this weight loss offering that it spun up and started making money off of in a very short period of time. that it can do this with other medications. And so it's the business model that you should be focused on and whether or not that business model works. And so if we look at the financials for to see, you know, is this a company that's in an easy business to make money in or not? So we look at the margins for this company. So if we look at the margins, not only has, have they been able to a ten X there, they've been able to ten X their revenue and, you know, five years and they're expecting a fifty percent growth in the next twelve months. But their margins are improving as well. So if you look at gross profit margin, In December, if we were looking at the last twelve months, that's fifty four percent. December twenty twenty, that's seventy three percent. Seventy five, seventy seven, eighty two percent was the gross margin of this business in December of twenty twenty three. And so then if you look at the last twelve months, it's improved a bit as well. Eighty two point two percent. So this is a company that is in a easy or I would categorize the business as just based on the profit margin that this is an easy way to make money and it has the growth numbers to back up the And when I say easy way to make money, I mean, you know, for every dollar, how much is it keeping for itself? That's what I mean. I don't mean, you know, operating the business is necessarily easy, but it's, you know, all else being equal, if you're comparing margins of eighty percent to margins of ten percent. You have to sell a dollar to retain ten cents. That's a much harder business to make money in. So we have an easy business to make money in. And whenever I'm investing, I'm looking for businesses that have an easier time making money. And that means higher margins, higher profitability margins. So that's what we have with HIMS. We'll bounce back from this dip in HIMS's price. And inshallah. will be here to tell you I told you so inshallah all right guys um leave a like if you haven't if you haven't liked already become a pif member if you aren't a pif member yet I want to say assalamu alaikum to everyone who came really appreciate you guys coming and especially because it's not at the normal time that I go live so I really appreciate that musa says assalamu alaikum I have some Ethereum that I would like to get rid of. Which crypto should I invest in? Should I follow the how I would invest email? Yeah, that's what I would do because that's how I would invest. And that's why I send it to members. Rashad says, Alhamdulillah, Rakan sounds better than yesterday. Thank you, Rashad. I appreciate it. I made sure that I was fully caffeinated and well fed before I went live so that I had enough energy. Thank you so much. PIF is the way to invest. Join anyone or get it. I really appreciate that, Rashad. Thank you so much. Fahed says, is HEMS and First Solar a buy at the moment? Well, check our watch list, Fahed, and our buy below and sell above prices. Supermicro Computers is one of those companies that is in a harder space to make money. So I saw the dip today. And we actually did a deep dive on super microcomputers for our elite members not too long ago. And I ended up passing on the company. And so if you look at the margins here for super microcomputer, one of the reasons why I passed on it, if you look at the margins, fourteen point one percent here. in June of twenty four. And that's below what it had in June of twenty three, which was eighteen percent. So this is a far cry from something like HIMSS, which has, you know, eighty percent plus and improving margins. So if I have a dollar to invest, am I going to give it to the business that only retains at fifteen cents on every dollar of revenue that it generates or am I going to give it to the business that's retaining eighty cents on every dollar of revenue that it generates you know there are other considerations as well that you have to look at but all else being equal obviously I'm going to go with the easy way to make money comparably speaking Do you have any comments on the lithium market like Piedmont Lithium? I'm confused as why it shot up today. So I actually went over Piedmont Lithium yesterday. So I would encourage you to end their updates. So I would encourage you to take a look at that. Research coin. I haven't looked at research coin. Joseph, thank you for being here. Perhaps I will take a look. Dr. Bas, should we expect a major correction in the second half of twenty twenty five, considering the greed in the markets? Price only goes up. I think you should always be ready for a correction in the sense that you have enough cash cushion that's not invested to where if there is a correction, you're not panicking and you're ready to buy more of the top one percent of assets that, inshallah, we hold in PIF. So that would be my strategy. Trying to predict macro is actually extremely, extremely tough. How about APA and MMM? Not sure. Not sure. Thanks, wise man. Allah bless you too. Hikmet says, Assalamu alaikum. Wa alaikum assalam. Hikmet, nice to see you. Oh, thanks, Sammy. Sammy says, I'm a PIF member and I would like to thank you for the help. I was able to make a good amount of money because of you. Well, thank you so much, Sammy. That makes my day for sure. MCO is also pro-Palestine. That's actually how it hit my radar in the first place. So at the time, the stock was punished. This was right before earnings. The stock was punished a lot. And then because he made pro-Palestinian remarks, and I was like, well, I'm going to see if I can buy a few shares. And if it's a good company, I'm going to tell PIF members about it. And so I took a look into it, and I was like, this is a great company, actually. It's hitting on all cylinders. And so subhanAllah, his principled stance led me to his company. Sammy says, I passed on PLL because I was uncomfortable with it and went with Arcadium, but now Arcadium was bought by Rio. Alhamdulillah, I made money, but I want to get back on a lithium stock. What do you suggest? Well, I'm not going to say PLL because you passed on it because you were uncomfortable with it. So right now I like PLL. And if another one hits my radar, I will let you know, inshallah, Sammy. And with that being said, like this live, if you enjoyed it, I'd really appreciate that. Hit the notification bell so you know when we go live next. Sometimes, you know, I try to do the lives earlier in the day, but sometimes I can't today. I was still recovering from the flu, so... I came in later. So if you'd like to be notified when I go live, hit the notification bell and become a PIF member. Join our community. Our community becomes better the more halal conscious, sincere investors are part of it. With that being said, I hope you enjoy the rest of your day. And until next time, make sure to take care of yourself. Assalamu alaikum and peace be upon you all.