Famed money manager Cathie Wood, chief executive of Ark Investment Management, was at it again Thursday, buying and selling some of her stock-in-trade names.
On the buy side, Ark funds purchased 776,835 shares of online retail host Shopify (SHOP), valued at $35 million as of Thursday’s close. That’s a much bigger bloc of stock than Wood normally buys.
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She was likely trying to benefit from Shopify’s 33% drop over the past year amid the slowdown in growth for e-commerce, as the pandemic has wound down.
To be sure, the stock has rebounded 27% year to date amid the bounce in technology stocks. It’s the eighth biggest holding in Wood’s flagship Ark Innovation ETF (ARKK).
Wood Pares Roku, Nvidia, Exact Sciences
On the selling side, Ark Innovation ETF unloaded 95,930 shares of streaming platform Roku (ROKU), valued at $6.8 million as of Thursday’s close.
The stock has slid 57% over the past year amid intense competition in the streaming industry, but has soared 69% year to date. It’s the third biggest holding in Ark Innovation.
Ark funds dumped 40,155 shares of semiconductor stalwart Nvidia (NVDA), valued at $8.8 million. The stock has shed 20% in the past year, thanks to a slumping chip industry. But it has jumped 45% so far this year, boosted by Nvidia’s fundamental strength.
Finally, Ark Innovation jettisoned 66,356 shares of Exact Sciences (EXAS), valued at $4.2 million as of Thursday’s close. The company is a medical diagnostics provider famous for its Cologuard at-home colon cancer test.
Exact Sciences shares have climbed 26% thus far in 2023, buoyed by strong earnings and the overall market’s rally.
That said, the stock has descended 21% over the past year. Wood has unloaded more than 2 million Exact Sciences shares this year. But the company is still the fourth biggest holding in Ark Innovation ETF.
Wood’s Returns Tumble
Meanwhile, Wood’s performance hasn’t exactly overwhelmed the investment world over the past year, as her young tech stocks have slumped. Ark Innovation has slid 44% during that period and 74% from its February 2021 peak.
Still, the fund has rebounded 31% so far this year, joining the tech-stock surge.
Wood defends her strategy by noting that she has a five-year investment horizon. But the five-year annualized return of Ark Innovation was 1.75% through Feb. 16, compared with 10.33% for the S&P 500.
The fund’s performance also doesn’t come close to Wood’s goal for annualized returns of 15% over five-year periods.
Ark Innovation, with $8 billion in assets, enjoyed a net investment outflow of $145 million during the past five days and $1.23 billion over the last year, according to ETF research firm VettaFi.
