Cathie Wood is the chief executive and chief investing officer of ARK Invest, whose exchange-traded funds have notched some of the best and worst returns in the market in recent years.
The firm’s flagship fund, ARK Innovation (ARKK), was an early investor in hot technology companies such as Tesla, Nvidia and Salesforce. It returned a blistering 153% in 2020, putting it in the top 1% of similar funds. Investors poured money in, making the fund the nation’s largest actively managed ETF, with nearly $28 billion under management in early 2021. But rising interest rates are kryptonite to the high-growth stocks Wood favors, and Innovation lost 23% and 67% in 2021 and 2022, respectively. That put it at the very bottom of its category and sparked a mass exodus by investors.
