Cathie Wood's flagship fund, ARK Innovation, has been caught in the midst of a wave of tech selling this week, and some analysts believe the stocks that underpin her strategies will fall even further before reaching a bottom.
The exchange-traded fund, which is focused on innovation, was down more than 48 percent from its all-time intraday high of February 2021 when it hit its low of the day on Thursday morning. That represents a worse decline than the one experienced by the fund in March of 2020, at the bottom of the pandemic market rout.
On Thursday, ARK Innovation's stock price fell 0.6 percent to $85.58 per share, a 0.6 percent decline.
The "Halftime Report" on CNBC reported that "this is worse than March of 2020" for that segment of the market. Josh Brown, co-founder and CEO of Ritholtz Wealth Management, said this on the show. "I find that to be quite remarkable."
An increase in interest rates is the primary reason for the selling this week, which contributed to the ETF's 9 percent decline over the past week. Higher interest rates typically penalize growth pockets of the market that rely on low interest rates to borrow money to invest in new technologies. Furthermore, when interest rates are rising, their future earnings become less attractive.
The yield on the 10-year Treasury note rose as high as 1.75 percent on Thursday, continuing a trend of rising rates to start the year, fueled by the Federal Reserve's signal that policy will be tightened more quickly than expected this year.
In an interview with CNBC's "Halftime Report," Stephen Weiss, chief investment officer and managing partner of Short Hills Capital Partners, stated, "I still don't believe the Cathie Wood stocks are at a low enough price." "There will be continued pressure," says the author.
"Inflation has arrived. I believe the Federal Reserve will be aggressive. "The Federal Reserve wants you out of risky assets," he continued.
At the time of writing, 36 of the 43 holdings in ARK Innovation have lost more than 40% of their value from their 52-week highs. ARK Innovation has invested in a variety of companies, including Tesla, Roku, Teladoc Health, and Zoom Video, to name just a few.
"The performance of Cathie Woods ARKK has been so dismal that it has cast a pall over every holding, despite the fact that it is not a hedge fund and cannot be shot against. Opportunities to discuss are tempting, but they are difficult to come by... CNBC's Jim Cramer said on Twitter on Thursday that the company was experiencing a "tough streak."
According to FactSet, the underperformance of Wood's flagship ETF this week has resulted in more than $280 million in fund withdrawals from the fund since Monday.
ARK Innovation's tumultuous start to 2022 follows a difficult year for the company in 2021, during which its stock fell by 24 percent.
Ark's forecast has not changed as a result of the decline in Wood's stock prices that began in mid-February of 2021. Wood explained that she is simply taking advantage of lower stock prices to purchase her most conviction stocks. According to her predictions, this will result in a quadrupling of the economy over the next five years.
