assalamu alaikum folks I hope you had a great weekend today is monday december and the markets were kind of quiet today we were in the green uh dow jones was up point one six nasdaq up a percentage point and s p up Three fourth of one percentage point. Russell was down. The dollar index is up. Now, this is something that I think of the two main concerns for the market right now, this is one of them. So the strength of the dollar is one concern. The other concern is the average level of interest rates. So I think moving forward, you know, it's a good idea to keep an eye on these two factors. The VIX was down substantially today. So after we got the record spike in VIX after JP's press conference on Wednesday, we have been Pairing back those gains and we're all the way down to sixteen. We went close to twenty eight, but now we're down to sixteen. There is typically an inverse relationship over time between the level of VIX and the returns that you get. So when you invest at higher levels of VIX, typically your returns are higher. Um, so there's, sorry, um, uh, not an inverse relationship, but, uh, what I meant to say is that when there's an inverse relationship with the level of fear, uh, so, um, or, or the level, uh, yeah. So when the VIX is lower and you invest during those times, uh, then you can expect, um, lower returns as well. Now, we did mention that the indices were positive and a big part of that is due to the Magnificent Seven and how they were performing. So for NVIDIA, for example, the return today was three point six nine percent continues to sort of carry the indices on its back. Lithium was pretty flat today. PLL was down three point two percent. Now checking in on lithium's price, I do see some encouraging signs that, OK, maybe there may be a heartbeat here. We we reached the floor in October and then we got a rebound in November and now we're at a low, but we're not as low as we were in October. So if we can continue to get higher highs and higher lows, perhaps that will mark a turnaround in the trend here for lithium prices. And that should bode well for lithium stocks like PLL, which is set to become the largest hard rock lithium producer in North America after its merger set for the first half of twenty twenty five. As it relates to now, microchips, semiconductor chips all did well today. And I think investors are going to be surprised at how enduring this AI story is for the markets and how long it actually carries many names. I think this is a very secular trend that is not going to go away anytime soon. MicroStrategy fell today, even though MicroStrategy was buying. But there's only so much you can do the same thing and expect the market to be excited about it. So MicroStrategy bought five thousand BTC for five hundred and sixty one million. which brings their total acquired to uh twenty seven point seven billion at an average price of sixty two thousand so they're still up about fifty percent on their investment after the pullback in bitcoin's price and uh looking at bitcoin we're at ninety four five uh doge is at thirty two cents solana is at one ninety one it actually recovered from yesterday's dip which saw it in the one seventies now as it relates to uh bitcoin I think you know looking ahead and some of the catalyst that we can expect for the year ahead. The The Trump National Bitcoin Reserve is obviously top of the list here. So the percentage right now, the market is assigning a sixty percent probability for a National Bitcoin Reserve. I've mentioned before, I think this is a catalyst that could be basically on par with the Bitcoin ETFs themselves. So there's at least forty percent of the probability that isn't priced into the Bitcoin price. yet. And so that's a catalyst that I see in this upcoming period. By the way, this is the lithium chart I was referring to. So we bottomed out in October. In November, we saw a local high, and then we've peeled back some of our gains. But again, if we see higher highs and higher lows, then I think that this may signify a change in trend. The fact of the matter is right now, lithium prices don't really support expansion and production, and yet demand is increasing. The rate of acceleration for EV adoption may be cooling off a bit, but that acceleration is certainly above positive. And so the trend is clear. Demand is increasing. Supply is basically stagnant or decreasing in some cases as projects close. And therefore, price should eventually catch up. We should see a turnaround here. been a hard hold for many this lithium play yeah but it should play out eventually I think inshallah all right and um yeah and so as we mentioned uh so uh micro strategy is continuing to carry the bitcoin price on its back and uh we should see other um you know, companies and countries follow in the, or use the playbook that MicroStrategy has been employing, which has seen its stock price actually increase, you know, close to five hundred percent this year. And. So we started this year. close to one, close to a hundred dollars actually. And then actually, sorry, we started this year close to a forty-five dollars and now we're at three hundred and thirty-nine dollars. We actually peaked here at four hundred and seventy dollars. So actually more than, so actually at the peak, we were, I mean, if we go trough to peak, we're close to a ten X here on MicroStrategy. So this is going to be a very sort of attractive playbook for other companies, especially Bitcoin miners that may be kind of over this whole Bitcoin mining thing, given how slim its margins are. You're going to see a lot of other companies and sovereign countries actually employ the microstrategy playbook, issue fiat at basically no cost or use fiat at basically no cost, and then use that to buy Bitcoin, an appreciating asset, and rinse and repeat until it doesn't work anymore. So with that, guys, let's go to questions. So Oluogbek says, hello, Arkan. Thank you for your daily updates. It's my pleasure. I hope you can shed some light on Micron's latest earnings report. Yeah, actually, Micron is one of those really extremely tough companies to... to get the timing right on, because it's a very cyclical company and the performance of the stock is extremely cyclical and you have to get it at the right time. It's a good company, don't get me wrong. And I have to say the net margins for the company were healthy, but the forecast and investing is a forward looking exercise. The forecast for the company was below expectations. And so even though it had a very strong quarter, the forecast was weak. And so the company has not been doing too good. In the last five days or five trading days, it's down close to twenty percent. So, yeah, it's a tough one. Assalamualaikum, nice to see you. Thanks, Rashad. I appreciate that. I think definitely China stimulus is good for the market. Quantifying its impact is very tough, but it's definitely good whenever there's, you know, stimulatory policies anywhere in the world, let alone one of the largest economies in the world that China is. For Bitcoin miners Q one, Q two, twenty twenty five. Well, I would be kind of offloading Bitcoin miners as I have been in this period. I think they'll probably peak in this period and then probably want to be out with exception to some names. I would say Bitdeer is one of them, which could turn out to be a longer term hold. Ethereum is not a crypto that I'm a fan of. I just think it's a technological monstrosity. So I think the only people who are investing in Ethereum at this point are people who don't know crypto and just are looking at the... No offense to Ethereum holders, but they look at the market cap rankings and they say, oh, well, it's in second place, so it must be good. Bitcoin is too big. Let me throw some money at Ethereum. So I think that's... you know, roughly the line of thinking that a lot of Ethereum investors are following. Thanks, Shami. I really appreciate it. You know, the second time someone does something, it's less effective. So the question is, can Marathon follow MicroStrategy steps? The second time is going to be less effective. The third time it's less effective and harder and so on and so forth. So, you know, Marathon will not have the same success that MicroStrategy has had as a stock, but it could benefit nonetheless. Yeah, BTC dominance is dropping and alts are finally popping up. While that is true, you have to be very careful and discerning with regards to which alts we're talking about because a lot of them are not popping up and they will not pop up. I do expect more dips in Jan, in January, twenty twenty five. And I think that, you know, maybe we have a strong closeout of the year, but I do expect dips in the first quarter of twenty twenty five. Albeit perhaps from higher highs. So, Monika, brother, how can I trade with share a compliant time? Just use cash. If you use cash, it should be good. Just avoid margin. That's the big thing with trading. I like Wolf, too. I think last time I looked at TerraWolf, a Bitcoin miner, TerraWolf, for those not familiar, it actually had too much debt. It was paying too much in interest, and so I passed. But I actually think it's a good company. I haven't taken a look, Kengo Inc. I haven't taken a look, Zidane. Perhaps I will. I'm not invested in it anymore. Maybe not the golf, but definitely other... areas that have, I think, more dynamic economies. And I think this sort of wave of liberation that we're seeing in Bangladesh and Afghanistan, Syria, I think it will continue to expand. I think the next decade or two are going to have a lot of extremely, extremely attractive opportunities in these regions that makes sense to take advantage of. Hey, guys, short live today. And we'll have something juicy for you tomorrow, inshallah. Leave a like if you enjoyed the live. Become a PIF member if you aren't already. Until next time, make sure to take care of yourself. Assalamualaikum and peace be upon you all.