- Donald Trump is a high-risk, extremely volatile stock like Tesla, Aswath Damodaran said
- Narendra Modi is a growth stock, comparable to Palantir on Wall Street, he said
- Trump is like Elon Musk for constantly changing the narrative and convincing investors, he added
If world leaders were stocks where would US President Donald Trump and Prime Minister Narendra Modi stand? The engaging views of Aswath Damodaran, Professor of Finance in New York University -- not just on the two leaders but also Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russia's Vladimir Putin -- has struck a chord on social media and his comments are being widely shared.
Talking of Donald Trump, Mr Damodaran - also known globally as the "Dean of valuation" -- told NDTV Profit that he is "a high-risk stock and extremely volatile... It is a Tesla on a global stage because Elon Musk has many of the same thing, right?".
As for PM Modi, "He is the lead seller of the India story and he's done a pretty good job of selling the India story. The stock in mind, it would have to be a growth story. So it would have to be Palantir... The story has heft, but lots of things have to fit. So it is still early in the game," he added. Palantir is currently the Wall Street's mot
Explaining his likening Mr Trump with Elon Musk, Mr Damodaran said the billionaire keeps changing the narrative. "Two days ago, I was listening to Elon saying that Tesla is really a robotics company. And I said, really, I thought it was an electric car company," he said. But Musk has still been able to convince investors "because he has enough people who seem to say, 'Okay, you're a robotics company'," he said, pointing out that President Trump, "in a sense, does that on a national stage".
The Chinese leadership, Mr Damodaran said, have a mission - "they're going to get there and nothing is going to get in their way".
"If Xi Jinping were a stock... he would be a stock would be more predictable than Trump. But if you got on this wrong side, God help you, right?" he said, citing the example of Amazon and equating it with Thanos from the Avengers series.
