Cathie Wood’s star rose during the pandemic for well-timed bets in companies such as Tesla, Zoom, and Roku, but those same bets are now dragging her ARK funds down, and investors have withdrawn billions of dollars this year in protest.
Funders have since January pulled $2.2 billion from six actively managed ETFs by Wood’s company, ARK Investment Management—a major jump from the $760 million investors took out last year, the Wall Street Journalreported. In total, the assets invested in these six ETFs have fallen 30% since the start of the year to $11.1 billion, down 81% from their peak in 2021.
Wood’s popularity is one of the main draws for investors to put money into ARK. Through a frenzy of TV appearances and persistent social media outreach, she became a celebrity both on and off Wall Street. Still, Morningstar analyst Robby Greengold wrote in an April note that ARK’s focus on Wood is part of the problem.
“Wood’s reliance on her instincts to construct the portfolio is a liability,” Greengold noted.
Some of Wood’s biggest stock picks have plummeted this year, even as tech stocks have led gains in the market and the S&P 500 has increased 6.3%. Tesla, which makes up about 9.45% of Wood’s flagship ARK Innovation ETF and is its second-largest holding, fell more than 50% on Tuesday after reporting lackluster first-quarter earnings. Even after a Wednesday morning rebound, the company’s shares are still down about 35% year to date. Some of ARK’s other holdings such as Zoom and Roku are down 11.5% and 31%, respectively, over the same period.
Wood has defended her decision to offload the ARK Innovation ETF’s holdings in chipmaker Nvidia just before a rally that has seen its shares jump 200% in a year. She said in May that Nvidia was facing increased competition from other tech companies like Tesla, Meta, and Apple, and added that it was time for a readjustment.
“We’re just pivoting to another set of plays that most people have not discovered yet,” Wood said at the time. “Much like they did not understand that Nvidia was an AI play, really, until very recently.”
A bright spot for Wood has been Coinbase, the ARK Innovation ETF’s largest holding. Shares of the crypto exchange have jumped about 47% since January but are still far off their highs of 2021.
In total, Morningstar estimates, in the decade since it launched its first funds, ARK Invest has lost more than $14 billion in investor wealth, more than any other asset manager over the same period.
ARK Invest did not immediately respond to Coins2Day’s request for comment, but a spokeswoman told the Wall Street Journal that the 109% return on its flagship fund since 2014 was evidence of its strong value creation.
The company’s flagship fund is down about 12% year to date. It closed up less than 1% at $43.90 as of Wednesday afternoon.