More than half of the companies in Cathie Wood’s five popular publicly traded funds at ARK Investment Management LLC were unprofitable over the past year. Analysts believe this will increase the volatility of these funds in the months ahead.
According to an analysis by Dow Jones Market Data, 85 of the 165 stocks in ARK’s actively managed ETFs caused net losses in recent fiscal years. That made the money particularly prone to dramatic fluctuations when investors turned their backs on growth stocks in favor of stocks that shine when the economy thrives.
In spite of Tech stocks rebound this weekAll five of ARK’s ETFs are down at least 18% from their mid-February highs, trailing the Nasdaq Composite, which is down 7.3% from the February 12 record.
Performance of the holdings of the five actively managed ETFs from ARK
The pain was greatest with stocks of unprofitable companies in ARK’s funds. According to a DJMD analysis of ARK’s holdings and FactSet data, these stocks fell an average of 23% over the past month, while profitable stocks fell 10% over the same period.
“These stocks are inherently riskier than the broader market,” said Ben Johnson, director of global ETF research at Morningstar.
A spokeswoman for ARK declined to comment. However, Ms. Wood has chosen television and YouTube to reassure her investors and stresses that the company continues to stick to its strategy.
“We’re as excited as always about everything we’re doing. The past few weeks have done nothing but increase the returns we expect from each of our stocks as they have fallen, ”Ms. Wood said in a video posted on YouTube last week and over Has received 700,000 views.
ARK’s high profile positions include streaming companies
year Inc.,
Home sales website
Zillow group Inc.
and music service
None of them made a profit in their most recent annual reports. The stocks of these and many other unprofitable companies include several ARK funds.
Teladoc health Inc.,
For example, four of the five ETFs have a combined position worth $ 2.3 billion. The virtual medical service provider has reported losses every year since it went public in 2015, including a loss of $ 485 million last year.
Of the 56 stocks in the flagship innovation fund, 36 did not generate any profits in the last few financial years, according to an analysis of company holdings. ARK’s Genomics Fund, which is down 5.4% so far this year, has even more exposure to unprofitable companies. 43 of its 57 holdings reported losses last year. In the three other ARK funds, at least around a quarter of the companies represented achieved no results in the past year.
Investors have long relied on valuation metrics like price-to-earnings ratio to gauge a stock’s prospects. However, such metrics are irrelevant for companies that are not making a profit. Instead, ARK relies on a mix of fantasy and discounted cash flow models, based on near zero interest rates, to justify the high valuations of stocks that have great potential to grow and enter their respective industries, such as cash and cash equivalents
alphabet Inc.’s
Search dominance and Facebook Inc.’s moat around social media.
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Many of ARK’s “disruptive” stocks became gangbusters in 2020 during the Covid-19 pandemic. The innovation ETF has risen by more than 150% in the past year alone and has tripled since its debut in 2014. A flurry of investor inflows followed, allowing ARK to place even bigger bets on the next wave of revolutionary companies.
Another potential problem with ARK investors is the high concentration of funds. For example, the company has a 15% stake in two of its $ 156 million funds in a biomedical products company
Cerus Corp.
The company has not been profitable in more than a decade, most recently recording an annual loss of nearly $ 60 million.
The more an investor owns a particular stock, the harder it is to add or sell stocks without changing prices. Morningstar released the numbers, noting that it would take more than 52 trading days for the ARK to sell its Cerus shares to get out of the position entirely to avoid a material shift in the share price to the detriment of its own investors.
Cerus’ shares are down 17% over the past month. According to Cathiesark.com, a website that tracks ARK’s trading activity and tracks ARK’s trading activity, the redemptions appear to have resulted in ARK’s funds losing more than 2 million shares between February 22nd and March 9th possibly exacerbating the decline in Cerus.
“That is the primary concern in portfolio management,” said Saumen Chattopadhyay, chief investment officer at asset management firm Carson Group, regarding the concentration. “If the bubble bursts, such funds can be made up.”
ARK doesn’t change its approach. Executives, including Ms. Wood, said volatility is hitting the market and their funds will be short-lived. Over the past few weeks, the company has been selling more liquid stocks to buy stocks of companies it claims to have higher convictions about, including smaller, harder-to-trade, and in some cases, unprofitable stocks. These purchases include Roku and
908 devices Inc.,
a chemical analysis company valued at just over $ 1 billion.
Ms. Wood said on her video last week that the funds had no trading or liquidity issues.
“We’re not in a bubble,” she added.
– Ken Jimenez contributed to this article.
Write to Michael Wursthorn Michael.Wursthorn@wsj.com
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