
The Practical Islamic Finance Podcast
The Practical Islamic Finance Podcast
Did I Make a Mistake?
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Did I Make a Mistake?
In this episode, we will cover:
- Intro
- Market Overview & Middle East Tensions
- Fed Holds Rates Steady: Key FOMC Takeaways
- Reflecting on LifeMD Sale
- LifeMD Business Model Breakdown
- Discounted Cash Flow Analysis on LifeMD
- LifeMD Intrinsic Value vs Market Price
- Silver & Gold Investment Insights
- Tesla Resilience & RoboTaxi Catalyst
- Bitdeer Stock Volatility Explained
- Outlook for Solar Stocks & Enphase
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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.
Assalamu alaikum everyone. I hope you are doing well. Today is Wednesday, June eighteenth and it is another day in the Trump administration utopia where it seems like the world is falling apart. We will inshallah break down things for you and make sure you understand that this is par for the course when it comes to investing. Things go up, things go down. You get rewarded for understanding what you own and having the patience to see your thesis through. Looking at some of the prices today of the major assets that we like to track, Bitcoin has maintained a above one hundred thousand dollar level throughout this crisis. Today it was in the one oh threes, but now it's closer to one oh five again. Doge is above seventeen cents and Ethereum is at twenty five hundred. Looking at the major indices in the United States today, the Russell was up. Half a percentage point, Dow Jones was pretty much flat, let's call it. S&P was flat and the Nasdaq was flat as well. So the world is basically waiting to see what the next move is going to be from this administration, whether it's going to go to war or not. that is whether or not it's going to help Israel bomb the Iranian nuclear sites, which it can't do on its own. It doesn't have the equipment to do so. It doesn't have the bombs that it needs to do so. So it needs the United States to step in. Unless, of course, they do something, take advantage of the degraded anti-aircraft weapons weaponry that Iran has and complete control over the skies of Iran that Israel has established. And they do some sort of special operations where they have boots on the ground. They go in, they blow it up and they leave. That's possible as well. So we'll see. What is pretty much guaranteed is that the next few days will be eventful. Now, as it relates to sort of the day-to-day management of portfolios, I do want to cover a move that we made yesterday and reflect on it, see whether or not it was the right move or not. So talk about that in a second. Before I do that, I do want to cover today's FOMC meeting, since that is a big deal, even though pretty much everyone was expecting the Fed to keep rates high. where they are, and indeed, the Fed did not disappoint in that regard. Rates were held steady. These are the five key points from the FOMC's decision, by the way. Rates were held steady for the fourth straight meeting, maintaining the pause that was started in December. The Fed is also forecasting a slowing of growth and inflation rising. So, the twenty twenty five GDP forecast was cut to one point four percent, while inflation expectations were raised to three percent, partly due to tariffs. the rate cut outlook is very a lax really lacks consensus the fed is split with regards to what is going to happen it doesn't know what's going to happen if you look at their dot plot it shows two possible cuts in twenty twenty five for a total of fifty basis points. But seven of nineteen Fed officials expect no cuts this year. The Fed is also seeing labor weakening, tariff risks, as we mentioned. Powell's noted early signs of labor market softening. And the Fed has insisted that it's not going to be pressured by political actors, it will do what it sees best based on its mandate, its dual mandate, and it's going to be data-driven, not politician-driven. Now, as it relates to the prospects of the United States entering the war with Iran, there are signals that no one really knows. I don't even think the administration knows yet. But there are signals that this may be a strong probability. So UK Prime Minister Starmer put his cabinet on alert for a possible US attack on Iran. So maybe he knows something, maybe he doesn't. Now let's talk about the LifeMD sale. I talked about this yesterday. We booked some profits from that and today it was up close to ten percent. So what was that sale? What was that taking of profits premature? Let's talk about that for a second. By the way, for those who are unfamiliar, LifeMD is a company that is, you know, if I wanted to. If I wanted to simplify the business, it's a direct to consumer pharmacy, you order what you need online, typically through their app, and you get the medicine that you need delivered to your door. Now there are other services that it is working on and vertical integration as well that it's working on, but that's in a nutshell, the business. So here's a snapshot overview of some of the key Data points for this company market cap now approaching seven hundred million. But the free cash flow now that's cash flow after you take into account investments into capex. So. Companies that are aggressively growing may have very little free cash flow, that doesn't mean they're not doing well. It simply means that they're investing aggressively in themselves. They see opportunities to use the cash that they're generating to expand their business. And so keep that in mind when you're interpreting these numbers. But as an investor, as an equity holder, free cash flow is basically what is left for you. After the expansion, after the expenses obviously are paid for the company, free cash flow is what is left for you. So, twenty twenty five free cash flow is four million. Twenty twenty six is fourteen. Twenty twenty seven is twenty three. Again, a lot of the cash generated is being reinvested in the business. That's something to keep in mind. But if I'm looking as an investor and I'm trying to see, okay, let's assume I'm buying the entire company. how much, if I lay out close to seven hundred million, what am I going to get back from this company in years one, two and three? Hey, maybe in ten years, this thing is generating a lot more cash and it makes sense to make this purchase. But I think looking ahead to the next three years makes a lot of sense because the world changes a lot. And I think For obvious investments, you have a payback period that is short. If you're looking at LifeMD, this doesn't seem like an obvious investment at this point, just because You know, you have to go out to twenty twenty seven to get twenty three million in free cash flow. And I assumed here performing a discounted cash flow evaluation, I assumed here the ten year average growth rate was twenty five percent, which is a lot, which is what the. Company is forecasting the growth in revenue will be this year versus last year, around twenty five percent. So let's extend that to the next ten years. That is after twenty twenty seven. Let's complete the ten years each year, increasing free cash flow by twenty five percent. And let's use a discount rate of twelve percent, even though the weighted average cost of capital for this company, depending on who you ask, is actually closer to fifteen percent. So we're being generous with our assumptions here for this company. And I'm using a perpetual growth rate of two point five percent. So after the ten years, the growth rate remains at two point five percent, whereas for health care companies, typically a two percent perpetual growth rate is used. Shares outstanding net debt is negative ten million. And for shares outstanding, I assume no, basically no dilution. Right now, it's very close to that number in shares. And also, when you consider that the net debt is negative ten million, it's very likely, which means that it only has ten million more in cash than it has that it's very likely that they will need to raise money. So that may come through dilution, it may come through debt. But that being said, These are the major data points that would go into any discounted cash flow analysis. And here's the If you use these numbers to figure out the free cash flows for the next ten years, this is what you get. If you're discounting it based on our cost of capital that we mentioned, then you get a sum of discounted free cash flows for the next ten years of around two hundred and thirteen million. The terminal value for the entire enterprise is three hundred and eighty million. Add those up. You come up to an enterprise value. Close to six hundred million. But then when you add the the ten million that it has in cash and then you get to that is cash more than debt. The net debt figure that we looked in, you get to just above six hundred million. Which means the intrinsic value per share is just around thirteen dollars. So that's how I look at it right now. And I think I was pretty generous with regards to the assumptions I made with the discounted cash flow again. you're using a twenty five percent average ten year growth in free cash flow. I'm using a twelve percent discount rate, even though the weighted average cost of capital is fifteen percent, because I'm assuming that this is going to come down with time as the as the business de-risks. And I'm assuming that A perpetual growth rate of two point five percent, which again, so in perpetuity, it's going at two point five percent, which is generous for companies in the health care sector. And here we're talking after ten years. So the growth phase should be behind it. So I don't think any of my assumptions were really that off. And so now today after a ten percent, it's now north of fifteen dollars, whereas the intrinsic value, as I said, is closer to thirteen. Now, if you were to say, OK, free cash flow is not a good way to value it, let's look at the PE. Well, if you look at the PE estimates for twenty twenty six, for example, to figure out the forward PE for this company, Well, if you look at the mid-range EPS estimate, you get a forward PE of around forty one. If you look at the low estimate for earnings per share, you get a PE of closer to ninety four. High estimate is closer to twenty seven. So I'm not saying that this is sort of egregiously overvalued. It's not. And, you know, if you have a long-term view of this and you think that it has a moat around it and that the execution of the team at LifeMD is so high class that actually, um, they won't have a problem fending off any competitors that enter into their space for the next few years. If you have that belief, then I would just sort of hold and who cares about valuation. With compounders, the number one mistake you can make is to interrupt the compounding process. For me, I just didn't have as strong a conviction as... some holders may have in this particular stock that it had a moat that was clearly defensible that would justify an overvaluation. Now, what I do think is probably happening here, especially considering the sort of down on itself market that we're seeing where things are flat and things that are more skewed towards the risk on end of the spectrum are down. What I do think is contributing to this upward move for this particular stock is the short interest. So the short percentage of float is close to ten percent. A short percentage of float is what you want. Short percentage of shares out doesn't really matter because that takes into account shares that are restricted. But short percentage of float, what's available to the public, is close to close to ten percent and perhaps it actually has increased because there is a delay here in these numbers so perhaps it has increased as the price has increased and that causes a short screw squeeze so if that is the case perhaps we go even higher But the intrinsic value is what I indicated in the previous slide, inshallah. That being said, I always say that you should never feel bad about taking profits. In the case of LifeMD, our first purchase of LifeMD, let me make sure I get this right. So I'll look it up here in the PIF portfolio. Um, yeah, so our, we basically doubled our money and then some, uh, on this stock and our first buy was at, um, February, at just under six dollars. So no reason to feel bad about taking profits. And if we do get a pullback, then we'll probably rotate from other winning positions into it, inshallah. So, inshallah, I am feeling good about our decisions. Again, it's very hard to... predict what the market is going to do from one day to the next. It's actually impossible and it's a fool's errand to try to do that. But what you can do is focus on the things that you can control like intrinsic value and whether the price is above or below and make decisions accordingly. All right. So with that being said, let's go to questions. What's your take on, and Gaming with Fahed says, Assalamualaikum, what's your take on investing in silver? Now, I actually think silver is not a bad play right about now. I mean, typically with regards to silver, it moves following gold. Gold is near all-time highs, performed quite well this year. Silver hasn't moved as generously, but recently it has. But I think there's still ways for it to go. And especially if the US enters this fight in the Middle East, then things like gold and silver will probably appreciate and other hard assets. Haroon says, Salam alaikum all. Seems like everything is quite flat this week. Just sitting and doing nothing. The diagram line is almost making a straight line to the right. No action at all. Yeah, because there's a lot of uncertainty about what's going to happen. It's very hard to tell. And honestly, I think at this point, even Trump doesn't know what he's going to decide. So we'll see. Tesla went up a tiny pixel. Actually, I think it's pretty noteworthy that Tesla is up on a day like today, and it's actually had a pretty strong performance as of late. So I think that's kind of indicative of what is to come. I think you're going to see a lot of resilience from Tesla. And you're going to see once things start to become more friendly in terms of the macro aspect, view, then I think you're going to see, and obviously we get some more developments with regards to RoboTaxi and how well it's doing in Austin. Once that happens, then it's going to be off to the races, inshallah. Salam, Rashad. Nice to see you. Are you keeping an eye on any catalysts this summer? Well, I have to say that The big catalyst in my mind, and this is sort of a micro catalyst in that it affects a particular stock. The big catalyst in my mind is Tesla's Robotaxi working. And I think that, like I said in a previous live, its progress is going to be slow and then it's going to be all of a sudden. And so it's, you know, the software update that goes out that makes all of these Teslas with hardware for able to operate as robo taxis. That's going to be a pretty wild time to be a Tesla car owner and a Tesla shareholder as well. um more macro I think that you know trade deal with china would be nice that would obviously be a huge catalyst if we could put these tariffs behind us but that's not a guarantee other trade deals yes they will be good bumps but they're The real big one is the trade deal with China, and hopefully that happening. Obviously, a cessation of violence in any of the two major conflicts right now, Ukraine, Russia, Israel, Iran, and that would be catalytic and put investor nerves at ease. But I think if you take away some of these geopolitical considerations, then the market has a lot of catching up to do. And so I do think that at this point, the market is sort of like a beach ball being pushed underwater. Once, and who knows how long this takes, but once some of these macroeconomic uncertainty is cleared up, I think it may pop. So I'm on my own channel. I'm trying to subscribe to PIF, but not getting monthly options, brother. We only have annual options. Sorry, brother. Mariam Jatoy says, is it a good entry point for ASML considering earnings report next week? Check our buy below and sell above prices on our watch list, Mariam. Basir says, Salaam is a bit down today due to financial issues or something else. Yesterday, they had the raise in convertible notes, so it should have limited dilution impact. But Bitdeer is a company that is shorted to the tune of between twenty and thirty percent. As I mentioned, there is a delay here, but between twenty and thirty percent of the float is short. So when a bad news item comes out, it is exaggerated to the downside. And when a good news item comes out, it's exaggerated to the upside, which makes it pretty nice if you're into trading. So I think that Bitdeer right now is offering a pretty good entry point, not investment advice as always. Hope I'm wrong, but I'm afraid the Zion tentacles are too strong. They will force Trump to war or perhaps, I mean, it's pretty suspicious. The one ad in this position that Trump has done now with regards to this conflict, initially he was like, oh, let's, you know, we're negotiating. Um, things seem to be progressing on in terms of negotiations. But then Israel basically decided, let's strike now before a deal is done in order to poison the water and make sure that no deal can be done. And instead of Trump being outraged that Israel did that, he's acting like, no, actually, I'm good with this. Actually, I support it. But he doesn't. He just can't. This is a situation that he's forced into. In one of your emails, you suggested making use of such situations as current war. Did you practice that or intend to do it? Yes, I made a purchase yesterday and I'll probably make a purchase today. I'm sorry, tomorrow as well. Hey, Salamat, Dr. Shawan. Always nice to see you. Any insight on when we expect a recovery in solar energy? I know, Dr. Khaled, I know that you're holding M-phase. It's tough right now. I think that probably the next catalyst for solar stocks like M-phase would be a more bullish interest rate outlook. So if we have more clarity with regards to interest rates going down, that's when I think we could see a bit of a bounce in those stocks because their product typically involves financing. So right now I'm sure they're having trouble with sales because people can't find good financing. And so until we have clarity there with regards to interest rates coming down, I think these stocks will probably remain in the doghouse. That being said, if you extended your outlook even further, then I think obviously solar is going to be a big, perhaps the most important energy generation source for humanity. And that being said, the Chinese are pretty crafty and they produce at low levels and it's tough to compete with. So it really depends on the names that you're in with regards to solar. But generally, I think the industry is probably going to boom. The question is, can you find a company within that industry that has carved out a defensible position for itself with generous profits, generous profit margins that it makes sense to put some money behind? That's really the challenge. And perhaps you'll find... better pickings in China than you will the United States. If you're looking for the lower tech part of the solar installation process, unless there's some sort of higher tech, innovative solar solution that a US company has, comes up with that has fat profit margins and is defensible, then probably the winning companies in the solar race will not be Western companies. They'll probably come from China. All right, so with that being said, do leave a like if you enjoyed this live. Become a PIF member. Link to do so is in the description if you haven't already. Love you guys. Take care of yourself. As-salamu alaykum and peace be upon you all.