Cathie Woodhead of Ark Funding Administration, has a historical past of shopping for shares shortly after their IPOs.
Lately, Wooden’s Ark funds have invested in newly public firms resembling Tempus AI (TEM), Coinbase (COIN), and CoreWeave (CRV), reflecting her technique of gaining early publicity to high-growth companies in synthetic intelligence, cryptocurrency, and cloud computing.
Now, Wooden is making one other IPO guess, shopping for greater than $529 million value of SpaceX inventory.
In 2025, the flagship Ark Innovation ETF gained 35.49%, far outpacing the S&P 500‘s return of 17.88% in the identical interval. However to date this 12 months, Wooden’s flagship Ark Innovation ETF (SHEET) is down 2.85%, whereas the S&P 500 surged 8.56%, Yahoo Finance data reveals.
Wooden gained a status after the Ark Innovation ETF delivered a 153% return in 2020. Nevertheless, her fashion additionally brings painful losses in bearish markets, as seen in 2022, when the Ark Innovation ETF tumbled greater than 60%.
These swings have weighed on Wooden’s long-term positive aspects. As of June 12, the Ark Innovation ETF has delivered a five-year annualized return of -8.06%whereas the S&P 500 has an annualized return of 11.84% over the identical interval, in response to information from Morningstar.
Cathie Wooden expects a “nice acceleration” introduced by know-how developments
Wooden focuses on high-tech firms throughout synthetic intelligence, blockchainbiomedical know-how, and robotics. She thinks these companies have robust development potential, although their volatility usually causes fluctuations within the Ark’s funds.
In accordance with Morningstar analyst Bella Albrechttwo of Wooden’s Ark funds had been among the many worst-performing ETFs within the first quarter of 2026. The Ark Subsequent Era Web ETF (ARKW) ranked second on the checklist, whereas the ARK Innovation ETF positioned fifth.
From 2014 to 2024, the Ark Innovation ETF worn out $7 billion in investor wealth, in response to a March 2025 evaluation by Morningstar’s analyst Amy Arnott. That made it the third-biggest wealth destroyer amongst mutual funds and ETFs in Arnott’s rating. The analyst hasn’t up to date her rating.
Extra SpaceX:
Wooden mentioned on the June 5 episode of “In the Know” that she is carefully watching June 17, when Kevin Warshthe brand new Federal Reserve chair, proclaims the following rate of interest choice.
“I do consider Kevin Warsh is aware of that rates of interest have to return down, mortgage charges at the very least. And if inflation comes down as productiveness is rising, irrespective of how robust the economic system is, I believe he’ll reduce charges,” Wooden mentioned.
