A complete guide to Cathie Wood's mind-blowing success, her firm's investing strategies, and the stock picks she's betting on for the future
- Cathie Wood has earned cult-like status on Wall Street due to her firm's investing outperformance.
- Her firm's ETFs are attracting inflows that rival industry legends like Vanguard and BlackRock.
- Insider is covering every angle of her career, investing strategies, and market outlook.
Cathie Wood emerged as the breakout star investor during one of the most chaotic years in Wall Street history.
While her career dates back to 1981, 2020 was the year when her performance and fund inflows earned her a cult-like following in the industry.
The $24.5 billion ARK Innovation ETF, her flagship exchange-traded fund, rose 150% last year, thanks partly to Tesla's 730% gain. Her other funds that cover the fintech, genomic, and internet industries all landed on the list of the 10 best-performing ETFs of 2020.
Retail and professional investors alike took notice of Wood's performance: Last year, Ark's family of ETFs grew at the fastest proportional growth rate of any ETF or mutual-fund manager in a Morningstar database that goes back to 2000.
Ark ETFs continue to command the industry's attention in 2021 by attracting new investor money at a pace that rivals stalwarts like BlackRock's iShares and Vanguard. Even her less-popular index funds were in the top 10% of flows year-to-date, according to Bloomberg data.
Following Wood's rapid rise over the past few years, there are questions about whether, and for how much longer, she can sustain her outperformance. The recent sell-off in high-growth stocks triggered a record one-day outflow of $465 million from her flagship innovation ETF. But in a sign of her staying power, investors poured a near-record $464 million back into the fund on the final trading day of February, Bloomberg data shows.
Insider will continue covering every angle of her cult-like status, from her ascendancy to the biggest investing bets she is making and the corners of the market she's exploring next.
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Inside her meteoric rise: Cathie Wood made a career betting on the future. Insiders reveal how the ARK Invest founder won the funds (and hearts) of memelord traders and boomer investors alike.
Inside Ark Invest's workplace, and what it's like to work for Wood: Famed investor Cathie Wood has staffed her firm with analysts in their 20s and 30s as she looks to predict the future. 2 analysts break down what it's like to work at Ark Invest.
Inside her stock-picking process: Cathie Wood's firm built 3 of the world's best ETFs, which all doubled in value within 3 years. She told us her 3-part process for spotting underappreciated technologies before they explode.
Why she was unfazed by the bond-induced sell-off in stocks: Cathie Wood breaks down why she was 'very comfortable' as the stock market got rocked by last week's bond sell-off - and shares her outlook for what happens after the tech rout
Her views on the biggest market events of 2021 so far: Cathie Wood and her analysts discuss why Tesla's $1.5 billion bitcoin purchase could trigger a wave of corporate investments, the fallout of the GameStop-AMC phenomenon, and their bullish views on the Chinese stock behind Clubhouse
Ark Invest's 2021 outlook: Cathie Wood's ARK Invest runs 5 active ETFs that more than doubled in 2020. She and her analysts share their 2021 outlooks on the economy, bitcoin, and Tesla.
The investment case for Tesla: Ark Invest, Tesla's biggest bull, broke down its thesis on the electric-car maker ahead of its inclusion in the S&P 500
Her stock picks that crushed the market in 2020: We're very surprised we didn't underperform in the 4th quarter': Cathie Wood and her analysts break down their stock-selection process and the top 10 picks that contributed to the outperformance of ARK ETFs in Q4 2020