Elon Musk Asks Cathie Wood Her Views On Ratio Of S&P Market Cap To GDP Being High

Tesla Inc TSLA CEO Elon Musk asked Cathie Wood of Ark Investment Management her views on the high ratio of S&P market cap to GDP on Monday.

What Happened: The entrepreneur quizzed Wood, portfolio manager for Ark Innovation ETF ARKK, on Twitter after the fund manager tweeted the latest episode of the company’s Big Ideas podcast featuring research from Ark’s Director of Research Brett Winton. 

What do you think of the unusually high ratio of S&P market cap to GDP?

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 6, 2021

Winton obliged Musk with an answer to his query, saying that comparing the S&P market cap to the United States Gross Domestic Product was akin to comparing “apples to oranges.”

He reasoned that while companies sell global and their domicile is decreasingly vital to distribution footprint, the two parameters were incomparable. 

Winton said that there is a “massive tailwind pressure” from people trying to buy investable long-duration assets as they “operate under the idea” that they should quit working at age 65 but keep living off of their saved resources till they reach their advanced years.

See also: How to Invest in Tesla Stock

Pointing to the fact that investible assets are price competitive to other stores of value, Winton questioned, “If locking money into the 10 year treasury yields less than 2% in annual incremental cashflow then what should I demand for an ownership share of a diversified set of global business interests?”

Winton then said that globally things ‘don’t look terribly out of line” considering the price movement in risk-free assets.

And, on a global basis, things don't look terribly out of line considering how much lower "risk-free" assets have moved pic.twitter.com/z90ixE260E

— Brett Winton (@wintonARK) April 6, 2021

Why It Matters: Tesla makes up for 11.07% of the weight in Wood’s Innovation ETF and is the top holding. As of Monday, the fund held 3,834,077 shares of the automaker valued at nearly $2.65 billion.

Wood has a $3,000 price target for the year 2025 on the automaker excluding the energy storage or solar business models. The impact of Bitcoin (BTC) investment has also not been factored in. 

See Also: Twitter, Trimble, 908 Devices, Tencent, Pluristem — What Cathy Wood's Ark Bought And Sold On Monday

Ark is not so upbeat about Tesla’s rival Volkswagen AG VWAGY, which according to its analyst Sam Korus is thinking linearly and thus could be left behind. 

Price Action: Tesla shares closed nearly 4.4% higher at $691.05 on Monday and fell 0.21% in the after-hours session.

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Photo Courtesy: JD Lasica via Wikimedia