Tuesday morning’s plunge in popular technology stocks offered a rare discounted buying opportunity for true believers. Cathie Wood was among them.
The head of Ark Investment Management snatched up Tesla Inc. after a fourth day of selling wiped out the electric-car maker’s gain for the year, she said in an interview on Bloomberg Radio. Tesla pared its losses to end the day down 2.2% at $698.84.
A subsequent email from Ark showed that three of the firm’s exchange-traded funds — Ark Innovation, Ark Autonomous Technology & Robotics and Ark Next Generation Internet — bought a total 240,548 shares of the automaker on Tuesday.
Growth strategies like Wood’s faced a reckoning on Tuesday with the Nasdaq 100 falling by more than 3% at one point, amid Treasury yields rising and concerns about lofty valuations in tech names. That gave way to a “buy the dip” frenzy that helped the benchmark turn positive by 3:20 p.m., though a late-session pullback left it lower by 0.2%.
“We love the liquidity that this provides us, we think it’s very healthy, a very healthy shakeout,” she said of her exchange-traded funds’ teams. “All I know is we are keeping our eyes on the prize and the prize just got a little bit more interesting.”
Wood’s main fund, the $27 billion ARK Innovation ETF (ARKK), notched its worst back-to-back rout since September, falling as much as 11.8% and ending the day down 3.3%. A record $4.96 billion worth of shares changed hands in total, more than double the previous high just a day prior.
“Corrections are good, they keep us all humble,” she said. “The strongest bull markets I’ve been in are built on walls of worry.”
–With assistance from Carol Massar, Tim Stenovec, Joanna Ossinger and Michael Patterson.
