Cathie Wood, chief executive of Ark Investment Management, on Friday traded three of her top-name stocks.
Ark funds bought 82,353 shares of Meta Platforms (META) -), parent of Facebook, Instagram and Whatsapp, valued at $25.4 million as of Friday’s close.
The timing is a bit curious given that the stock has more than doubled (up 157%) so far this year amid an improved outlook for Meta’s earnings. So the shares hardly qualify as a bargain. But they are still down 9% over the past two years.
Meta is the 25th biggest holding in Wood’s flagship Ark Innovation ETF (ARKK) -).
Meanwhile, Ark funds sold 478,536 shares of Coinbase (COIN) -), the country’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, valued at $50.4 million as of Friday’s close. The stock has tripled this year, as bitcoin has rebounded strongly from last year’s drop and other exchanges have fallen by the wayside.
Still, Coinbase shares have slumped 58% in the past two years. It’s the second biggest holding in Ark Innovation ETF. So Wood may just have wanted to trim the position to take advantage of the stock’s recent climb.
The sale of Coinbase in Ark Innovation ETF represented only 3% of its Coinbase holding. The stock is the fund’s second biggest position after Tesla (TSLA) -).
Finally on Friday, Ark funds purchased 280,959 shares of online securities brokerage Robinhood Markets (HOOD) -), valued at $3.5 million as of Friday’s close.
Again, Wood bought into a rising market. The stock has surged 56% year to date in line with other unprofitable technology stocks. But it’s down 64% over the past two years. Robinhood is the 10th biggest holding in the Ark Next Generation Internet ETF (ARKW) -).
Wood’s Lagging Returns
Meanwhile, Wood’s performance hasn’t exactly lit the investment world on fire over the past couple years, as her young technology stocks have slumped. Ark Innovation has descended 69% from its February 2021 peak.
Nonetheless, the fund has bounced back 59% so far this year, as tech stocks have rebounded, particularly smaller ones. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite has risen 36%.
Mama Cathie, as Wood is known to her fans, defends her strategy by noting that she has a five-year investment horizon. But the five-year annualized return of $9-billion-asset Ark Innovation was 1.63% through July 14, compared with 11.9% for the S&P 500, according to Morningstar.
The fund’s performance also doesn’t come close to Wood’s goal for annualized returns of 15% over five-year periods.
Ark Innovation has seen a net investment inflow of $314 million in the past five days. But it has seen a $533 million outflow over the past year, according to ETF research firm VettaFi.
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