Cathie Woodchief of Ark Funding Administration, is thought for actively buying and selling her holdings, typically promoting shares throughout sharp market pullbacks.
Semiconductor shares skilled a significant market pullback on Might 15, with the iShares Semiconductor ETF (SOXX) dropping roughly 4%. Amid that sell-off, Wooden offered tens of millions of {dollars} price of shares in a single chipmaker firm.
In 2025, Wooden’s flagship Ark Innovation ETF gained 35.49%, far outpacing the S&P 500’s return of 17.88% in the identical interval. Thus far this 12 months, Wooden’s flagship Ark Innovation ETF (SHEET) was down 3.81%, trailing the S&P 500’s achieve of greater than 8%.
Wooden gained a repute after the Ark Innovation ETF delivered a 153% return in 2020. However her type 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 factors. As of Might 7, the Ark Innovation ETF has delivered a five-year annualized return of -6.25%whereas the S&P 500 has an annualized return of 13.80% over the identical interval, based on information from Morningstar.
Cathie Wooden expects “nice acceleration” introduced by tech 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 typically causes fluctuations within the Ark’s funds.
In accordance with Morningstar analyst Bella Albrechttwo of Wooden’s Ark funds have 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, based on an 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 the 2025 rating.
In a March Bloomberg podcastWooden says the worldwide economic system shouldn’t be heading right into a downturn, however into what she calls a “nice acceleration” pushed by AI and different breakthrough applied sciences.
“We’re not going into the Great Depressionwe’re going into the nice acceleration,” Wooden stated, pointing to how previous technological revolutions reshaped financial development.
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She famous that world actual GDP development averaged simply 0.6% between 1500 and 1900, earlier than the Industrial Revolution lifted it to round 3% for greater than a century. Now, she argues, a brand new wave of innovation might push development a lot increased.
