Cathie Wood’s Ark Invest just launched another new exchange-traded fund Wednesday. But it comes at a time when most other Ark ETFs have been languishing, which begs the following question: Is the Wood/Ark phenomenon a bubble that has already burst?
Many investors are content to buy the biggest names in tech stocks, but Wood is usually looking for big innovators in buzzy fields like fintech, robotics and space. It’s a high-risk, high-reward strategy that has drawn a following on Wall Street.
Ark’s new ETF is geared towards companies that score well for corporate transparency. It’s called, unsurprisingly, the Ark Transparency ETF.
Unlike many of the other Ark funds, this ETF is based on an index and does not have stocks actively picked by Wood or others on the Ark team. The fund joins two other index funds that Ark offers, one for 3D printing companies (PRNT) and another for Israeli tech stocks. (IZRL)
Chip giant Nvidia (NVDA), solar energy company Enphase (ENPH) and communications tech firm MaxLinear (MXL) are among the top holdings in the Transparency fund.
But maybe having another new fund that tracks a passive index is a good thing for Ark investors?
After all, Ark’s flagship Innovation ETF (ARKK), which has big bets on risky companies such as Tesla (TSLA), Roku (ROKU), Zoom (ZM) and Coinbase, has fallen about 20% so far in 2021…even as the broader market has rallied to near record highs.
Ark ETFs focused on fintech (ARKF) and internet (ARKW) stocks are each down more than 10% this year as well. A new space exploration fund is down almost 15% since it “launched” in March. And a genomics/healthcare-themed fund (ARKG) has plunged more than 30% in 2021.
Only the actively managed Ark Autonomous Technology & Robotics ETF (ARKQ) is up this year. But with just a 5% gain, it is lagging the rest of the market.
Most of the Ark funds surged in 2019 and 2020, especially last year as Wood made big bets on companies like Roku and Zoom that benefited from the stay at/work from home trend during the pandemic. Virtual health company Teladoc (TDOC) is another top Ark stock.
However, the recent underperormance of Ark’s top funds have some investors wondering if Wood’s go big or go home strategy is no longer a winning formula. In fact, there’s even a new ETF that is specifically betting against Ark Innovation.
The Tuttle Capital Short Innovation ETF launched last month. So far, it is up more than 16% since its inception while the Ark Innovation ETF has fallen 16% during the same time frame.
