Cathie Wood buys the dip on pandemic darlings Roku, Zoom, Roblox
2022.04.22 15:10
FILE PHOTO: Cathie Wood, founder and CEO of ARK Investment Management LLC, speaks during the Skybridge Capital SALT New York 2021 conference in New York City, U.S., September 13, 2021. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid/File Photo
(Reuters) – Star stock-picker Cathie Wood’s Ark Invest this week snapped up shares of pandemic darlings including Roblox Corp, Roku (NASDAQ:ROKU) Inc and Zoom Video Communications (NASDAQ:ZM) that have fallen out of favor this year.
The asset manager’s flagship ARK Innovation ETF has slumped 43% this year, lagging far behind the S&P 500‘s 7.7% decline as the prospect of aggressive U.S. policy tightening hammered the fund’s hyper-growth stocks.
Over the week, ARK bought 100,642 shares of e-commerce firm Shopify (NYSE:SHOP) Inc, 329,073 of Zoom, 739,082 of gaming site Roblox and 575,648 of streaming device maker Roku.
Wood’s shopping spree came after a shocking subscriber loss at Netflix Inc (NASDAQ:NFLX) triggered a selloff in stocks that thrived during COVID-19 lockdowns.
The asset manager shed more than half a million shares of Snap Inc (NYSE:SNAP) this week, ahead of the company’s earnings. The Snapchat owner slipped nearly 2% in premarket trading on Friday after warning inflation could hurt revenue growth in the current quarter.
Last week, Wood reiterated her bullish stance on the fund’s biggest holding, Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) Inc. ARK Innovation ETF’s stake in Tesla is worth $969 million, or 10% of the fund’s weight.
The electric-car maker’s stock is the only one among the fund’s top 10 holdings that has climbed over the past year. The other nine – including Roku, Zoom and Teladoc (NYSE:TDOC) Health – have plunged between 22% and 62%.
Tesla’s shares have climbed about 35% over the past year and rose 3% on Thursday after its results raced ahead of expectations.