Cathie Wood’s Ark sheds almost $50bn in assets since 2021 peak

Cathie Wood’s Ark Investment Management has lost almost $50bn in assets from its stable of exchange traded funds since its 2021 peak, highlighting the scale of this year’s losses in speculative tech stocks.
Total assets across Ark’s nine ETFs have slumped to $11.4bn from a peak of $60.3bn in February last year, according to Morningstar data. This was led by steep declines in its flagship Ark Disruptive Innovation ETF, known by its ticker ARKK, which has lost around two-thirds of its value this year and is on track for its worst annual performance.

The steep fall highlights how growth investors such as Wood have been wrongfooted this year as the US Federal Reserve and other central banks globally called time on a decade-long period of cheap money with interest rate rises to combat inflation.
This has prompted a sell-off in tech stocks, notably fast-growing and lossmaking companies, which are seen as especially susceptible to rises in interest rates that diminish their potential future returns. Investors have rotated in to value stocks that look cheap compared with metrics such as book value and profits.