Investment star Cathie Wood, chief executive of Ark Investment Management, continues to be active in technology-related stocks, buying, and mostly selling, some big names on Friday.
Ark Next Generation ETF (ARKW) purchased 20,624 shares of cybersecurity company Okta (OKTA), valued at $3.3 million as of Friday’s close.
As for the selling, Wood continued to dump what little shares she had left of online arts-and-crafts retailer Etsy (ETSY) and data-mining company Palantir (PLTR).
Ark Next Generation sold its remaining 91 shares of Etsy, valued at $13,793 as of Friday’s close.
Ark funds unloaded 41 shares of Palantir, valued at $449, and 21,521 shares of security software maker Splunk (SPLK), valued at $2.8 million. Both valuations are as of Friday’s close.
Meanwhile, Wood waxed enthusiastic about her funds’ performance potential for coming years, despite their slide in 2021-22.
“Given our expectations for growth in these new technologies [of companies held in her portfolios], I think we’re going to see some spectacular returns” over the next five years, she said in an interview with CNBC.
“We’ve been in a terrible bear market for innovation,” Wood said. “However, if you look from the bottom of the coronavirus to that peak [of the Ark Innovation ETF (ARKK)] in February 2021, we were up 358%.”
Ark Innovation fell 23% last year and has slid 35% this year.
Wood noted that investors haven’t abandoned Ark, with its funds seeing “significant inflows” since Jan. 17. Ark Innovation has enjoyed an inflow of almost $1 billion in that time, according to ETF.com, as cited by CNBC.
On another subject, Wood said on Twitter that she erred in 2020, when she said oil demand probably peaked in 2019 and prices were headed down to $12.
“I got the supply shock wrong,” Wood wrote. “That said, the accelerated shift toward electric transportation will destroy oil consumption at the margin. Long-term, though longer-term than I expected, oil prices will collapse under the weight of lower demand. Innovation solves problems!”
And maybe her forecast wasn’t so off, Wood tweeted. “Oil demand probably did hit a secular peak in 2019,” she said.
“The supply shock caused by the energy insecurity policies of the current U.S. administration, [environment/social/governance] mandates globally, and now Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has raised prices to a point that will accelerate demand destruction.”
