In May 2021, my life changed when I made the decision to move from Lebanon to the UAE. It wasn’t an easy choice, but it was the obvious one.
After an economic collapse, a pandemic and one of the largest non-nuclear explosions in history, there was only so much more I could take.
I began interviewing for my current job at The National immediately after the Beirut blast. Aside from wanting to join an esteemed news organisation, I also really wanted a way out of Lebanon. I remember the editors sensing my despair when my internet completely failed me during our second-stage interview. I made it absolutely clear that I wanted to relocate.
Of course I dreaded having to leave my family behind to pursue my career. In fact, it’s one of the toughest things I’ve had to do, but one thing brought me solace — I'd think to myself, they can always come visit.
Little did I know, I couldn’t have been more wrong.
The plan was for me to move, get my residency and find a house before bringing my mother over to help me get settled in. She was meant to help me furnish the apartment from scratch, teach me a few recipes and maybe even cook a few of my favourite meals that I can keep frozen for when I’m craving a taste of home.
But for more than a year now, she has been on an endless waiting list to get her Lebanese passport renewed, and the end is far from near.
A lack of funds has crippled Lebanon’s public sector and made it increasingly difficult for people to obtain new travel documents. The earliest available appointment on the General Security’s website is in 2024, with thousands of people waiting for their turn after the demand for a passport surged over the past two years.
Many are calling my home country an "open-air prison". Somehow it feels fitting.
Lebanon's inability to issue passports is only one outcome of decades of corruption and mismanagement.
The country is facing what has been described as one of the worst economic crises in recent history, according to the World Bank, with more than 80 per cent of the population living in poverty.
The dire situation has pushed people to reminisce about having scheduled power cuts rather than no power at all, paying exorbitant prices for essentials over not finding essentials at all, and living in a Ponzi scheme over living in collapse.
All I wanted was to give my family the chance to escape that, albeit temporarily. And, more selfishly, I wanted my loved ones to leave their mark in this place I now call home, to give me comfort.
But things don’t always go according to plan. So phone calls and text messages have become my only means of communication with my mother and a way to ask for her input on the life I’m building in Abu Dhabi.
From sending her pictures at the furniture shop and waiting for her reply before I make a purchase, to calling her every day with 100 cooking questions and still never perfecting her recipes, this is the closest I can get to having my mother near.
While I do regularly fly back home to visit, I always return to the UAE with tears streaming down my face and an immeasurable amount of guilt on my shoulders.
“I wish you could come with me,” I tell my mom as I say goodbye every time.
“Inshallah,” she tells me solemnly, which everyone knows is an Arab mother’s lingo for something that just won’t happen.
How Tesla’s price correction has hit fund managers
Investing in disruptive technology can be a bumpy ride, as investors in Tesla were reminded on Friday, when its stock dropped 7.5 per cent in early trading to $575.
It recovered slightly but still ended the week 15 per cent lower and is down a third from its all-time high of $883 on January 26. The electric car maker’s market cap fell from $834 billion to about $567bn in that time, a drop of an astonishing $267bn, and a blow for those who bought Tesla stock late.
The collapse also hit fund managers that have gone big on Tesla, notably the UK-based Scottish Mortgage Investment Trust and Cathie Wood’s ARK Innovation ETF.
Tesla is the top holding in both funds, making up a hefty 10 per cent of total assets under management. Both funds have fallen by a quarter in the past month.
Matt Weller, global head of market research at GAIN Capital, recently warned that Tesla founder Elon Musk had “flown a bit too close to the sun”, after getting carried away by investing $1.5bn of the company’s money in Bitcoin.
He also predicted Tesla’s sales could struggle as traditional auto manufacturers ramp up electric car production, destroying its first mover advantage.
AJ Bell’s Russ Mould warns that many investors buy tech stocks when earnings forecasts are rising, almost regardless of valuation. “When it works, it really works. But when it goes wrong, elevated valuations leave little or no downside protection.”
A Tesla correction was probably baked in after last year’s astonishing share price surge, and many investors will see this as an opportunity to load up at a reduced price.
Dramatic swings are to be expected when investing in disruptive technology, as Ms Wood at ARK makes clear.
Every week, she sends subscribers a commentary listing “stocks in our strategies that have appreciated or dropped more than 15 per cent in a day” during the week.
Her latest commentary, issued on Friday, showed seven stocks displaying extreme volatility, led by ExOne, a leader in binder jetting 3D printing technology. It jumped 24 per cent, boosted by news that fellow 3D printing specialist Stratasys had beaten fourth-quarter revenues and earnings expectations, seen as good news for the sector.
By contrast, computational drug and material discovery company Schrödinger fell 27 per cent after quarterly and full-year results showed its core software sales and drug development pipeline slowing.
Despite that setback, Ms Wood remains positive, arguing that its “medicinal chemistry platform offers a powerful and unique view into chemical space”.
In her weekly video view, she remains bullish, stating that: “We are on the right side of change, and disruptive innovation is going to deliver exponential growth trajectories for many of our companies, in fact, most of them.”
Ms Wood remains committed to Tesla as she expects global electric car sales to compound at an average annual rate of 82 per cent for the next five years.
She said these are so “enormous that some people find them unbelievable”, and argues that this scepticism, especially among institutional investors, “festers” and creates a great opportunity for ARK.
Only you can decide whether you are a believer or a festering sceptic. If it’s the former, then buckle up.
Electric scooters: some rules to remember
- Riders must be 14-years-old or over
- Wear a protective helmet
- Park the electric scooter in designated parking lots (if any)
- Do not leave electric scooter in locations that obstruct traffic or pedestrians
- Solo riders only, no passengers allowed
- Do not drive outside designated lanes
Meghan%20podcast
%3Cp%3EMeghan%20Markle%2C%20the%20wife%20of%20Prince%20Harry%2C%20launched%20her%20long-awaited%20podcast%20Tuesday%2C%20with%20tennis%20megastar%20Serena%20Williams%20as%20the%20first%20guest.%3C%2Fp%3E%0A%3Cp%3EThe%20Duchess%20of%20Sussex%20said%20the%2012-part%20series%2C%20called%20%22Archetypes%2C%22%20--%20a%20play%20on%20the%20name%20of%20the%20couple's%20oldest%20child%2C%20Archie%20--%20would%20explore%20the%20female%20experience.%3C%2Fp%3E%0A%3Cp%3ELast%20year%20the%20couple%20told%20Oprah%20Winfrey%20that%20life%20inside%20%22The%20Firm%22%20had%20been%20miserable%2C%20and%20that%20they%20had%20experienced%20racism.%26nbsp%3B%3C%2Fp%3E%0A%3Cp%3E%22I%20don't%20ever%20remember%20personally%20feeling%20the%20negative%20connotation%20behind%20the%20word%20ambitious%2C%20until%20I%20started%20dating%20my%20now-husband%2C%22%20she%20told%20the%20tennis%20champion.%26nbsp%3B%3C%2Fp%3E%0A%3Cp%3E%3C%2Fp%3E%0A
First Person
Richard Flanagan
Chatto & Windus
Student Of The Year 2
Director: Punit Malhotra
Stars: Tiger Shroff, Tara Sutaria, Ananya Pandey, Aditya Seal
1.5 stars
