Cathie Woodhead of Ark Funding Administration, usually takes benefit of market swings.
That’s what she simply did, promoting shares of a semiconductor inventory after it jumped 25% in per week.
Final 12 months, Wooden’s flagship Ark Innovation ETF (SHEET) gained 35.49%, far outpacing the S&P 500’s return of 17.88% in the identical interval. However the efficiency has shifted this 12 months.
To this point in 2026, the Ark Innovation ETF is down 1.76%, whereas the S&P 500 surged 4.67% over the identical interval, in keeping with Yahoo Finance data.
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 beneficial properties. As of April 24, the Ark Innovation ETF has delivered a five-year annualized return of -9.01%whereas the S&P 500 has an annualized return of 13.01% over the identical interval, in keeping with knowledge from Morningstar.
Wooden focuses on high-tech corporations throughout synthetic intelligence, blockchainbiomedical expertise, and robotics. She thinks these companies have sturdy progress potential, although their volatility usually 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 Technology Web ETF (ARKW) ranked second on the record, whereas the ARK Innovation ETF positioned fifth.
“We’re not going into the Great Depressionwe’re going into the good acceleration,” Wooden mentioned, pointing to how previous technological revolutions reshaped financial progress.
She famous that international actual GDP progress 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 progress a lot greater.
“We predict (applied sciences) are going to take progress into the 7 to eight% vary,” Wooden mentioned, including that the quantity may very well be conservative.
Wooden additionally famous that AI is driving down prices throughout industries.
“These applied sciences are deflationary,” she mentioned. “AI coaching prices are dropping 75% per 12 months, and inference prices are falling as a lot as 85% to even 98% yearly.”
In a letter revealed in January, Wooden rejects the “AI bubble” discuss, saying it “is years away” and “probably the most highly effective capital spending cycle in historical past” is coming.
From 2014 to 2024, the Ark Innovation ETF worn out $7 billion in investor wealth, in keeping with 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 the 2025 rating.
