Stock Market Rally: What does it mean for your portfolio?
21 July 2023 6 min read
4 min read
Published:
Updated:
Haider Saleem
Stock – Tesla, Inc
Ticker – NASDAQ: TSLA
Sector – Consumer Cyclical
Halal – Yes
Why it’s a buy – Huge recent growth
You want to buy Tesla stock, but you’re concerned if it is sharia compliant.
Let’s take a look at their financial results for its third quarter ended Oct 21, 2020.
To consider if Tesla is Shariah compliant, we will use the following criteria which consist of qualitative and quantitative analysis. They include two financial ratios.
We will only apply the criteria/financial ratios in this article. If you want a detailed explanation of what each criteria contains, you can read our stock screening article. We also, have a halal stock screener course where you can access the materials anytime and it goes through step-by-step how to actually screen a stock (it helped me a lot).
Before we begin our analysis, let’s take a look at some of Tesla’s highlights:
Straight forward – there’s no issue on the permissibility of Tesla’s business, which is mainly the sale of electric vehicles.
Compared to the other big companies – there are nowhere near as many ethical concerns. The only major issue is the manufacture of its batteries and the damage it has on the environment.
We can safely safe it passes the business and ethical side (but do your own due diligence).
let’s move to the next stage.
This is the first of the three financial ratios we will use.
The total interest-bearing debt should not exceed 33% of total assets.
Total assets = $45,691m.
Current liabilities = $13,685m
Non-current liabilities = $48m
Total interest-bearing liabilities = $13,733m
We then divide total interest-bearing liabilities ($13,733m) with total assets of the company ($45,691m) and x 100.
This = 30%
Tesla PASSES this stage. But it’s close.
However, there is an alternative screening method for step 2, as discussed below.
An alternative way of step 2 is to compare interest-bearing debt to market cap – this is preferred by the AAOIFI.
We divide Total Interest-Bearing Liabilities ($13,733m) with the Market Cap of the company ($783.12b) and x 100.
This should be under 33%.
We don’t even need to run the calculation here.
It’s clearly under 33% – therefore Tesla PASSES this stage.
PASSES
Ultimately the approach you take on using either the total assets or the market cap depends on the methodology you choose. The scholars are fairly comfortable with either approach – especially in times of market volatility where numbers become abnormal and sharia-compliance thresholds might get triggered a lot as stock market prices seesaw up and down.
Our approach has historically been to prefer the total assets approach unless there are compelling reasons for relying on the market cap approach instead. This should be taken on a case-by-case basis.
Let’s go to the final step.
Illiquid assets should be at least 20% of total assets.
Illiquid assets = $24,217m (total assets $45,691 – total current assets $21,744).
Total assets = $45,691m.
The formula is: Illiquid assets $24,217m/total assets $45,691m *100.
Illiquid assets make up 53% of total assets – this is more than 20%, which is what we want.
As we only need 20% minimum, Tesla PASSES this step.
We’re good so far. Now let’s apply the final step.
Therefore, Tesla PASSES this step.
We at IFG take the view that Tesla stock is sharia-compliant.
A summary of our analysis.
For comparison, Islamic Investment Companies do include Tesla in their investment portfolio, such as Wahed Invest and HSBC Islamic Funds. You can compare some funds on our Halal Investment Platform.
If you want a detailed explanation of what each criteria contains, then check out our halal stock screener course.
Please note AAOIFI are currently revising their standards, so the above may be subject to change. Please find the AAOIFI standards here. Furthermore, you must screen each stock after new figures are released to ensure there are no changes to permissibility.
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