Wall Street Today | Cathie Wood's ARK faces loyalty test after tech-stock rout

Investors betting emerging-market stocks will best U.S. equities this year have stumbled at the first hurdle. Traditionally, the fourth week of January is when the market punishes investors who bet the trend in the opening days of the year will continue, and 2022 is proving no exception. Developing-nation equities just had their worst week since August after their strongest showing relative to the S&P 500 Index since 1990 in the previous three weeks.

Aggressive tightening plans at the Federal Reserve and geopolitical tensions over Ukraine have eclipsed robust earnings and cheap valuations, and raise doubts developing nations can end their lost decade versus U.S. equities. With purchasing managers' indexes due from Russia to India and Brazil this week, investors are looking out for evidence of a speedier economic recovery.

Cathie Wood's ARK faces loyalty test after tech-stock rout

Cathie Wood says the high-risk stocks in the exchange-traded funds sold by ARK Investment Management LLC are so cheap that they will inevitably rise. A surprising number of investors are willing to give it a shot.

Over the past week, with prices in the $ARK Innovation ETF (ARKK.US)$ back at mid-2020 levels, investors have put about $168 million into the fund, boosting its net assets to $11.8 billion, according to FactSet. It is a noteworthy vote of confidence for a fund has dropped 27% this month and lost half its value over the past year, as its brand of investing in largely unprofitable, untested firms has fallen out of favor .

Move over, meme stocks: Retail investors go back to the blue chips

A year ago, speculative stocks such as $GameStop (GME.US)$ were some of the most-favored choices of individual investors. Since then, though, their tastes have changed.

Retail investors' top picks now look more like they did in early 2020, when the roster of the most-popular U.S.-listed stocks and exchange-traded funds was made up almost entirely of shares of well-established companies in the benchmark S&P 500 and ETFs representing broad bets on U.S. stocks or bonds, according to data from VandaTrack.

Crypto slide puts outlook of a billion investors by 2023 to test

Weakness in the crypto market is providing a sobering backdrop for bullish forecasts, but adherents remain undeterred.

Trading-platform Crypto.com estimates 1 billion people will invest in cryptocurrencies by the end of this year. It's a lofty target. Not only is it more than triple the amount from last year, based on the company's data, but many suspect Bitcoin and other digital assets are entering a crypto winter.

In all, about 150 drugmakers raised prices on 866 products in the U.S. through Jan. 20, according to an analysis from Rx Savings Solutions, which sells software to help employers and health plans choose the least-expensive medicines.

Spotify to add content advisory when podcasts mention Covid as more musicians yank songs from platform

Audio streaming giant $Spotify Technology (SPOT.US)$ said Sunday it will add content advisories to any material mentioning Covid-19, and direct its users to public health sites for more information.

Spotify is facing backlash for its decision to continue to air the popular podcast, "The Joe Rogan Experience," despite concerns that it is spreading Covid misinformation. Host Joe Rogan interviewed Dr. Robert Malone, an infectious disease specialist who has become well-known among anti-vaccine Americans. Malone has been banned from $Twitter (Delisted) (TWTR.US)$.