Cathie Wood, head of Ark Investment Management, often takes advantage of market swings.
That’s what she just did, selling shares of a semiconductor stock after it jumped 25% in a week.
Last year, Wood’s flagship Ark Innovation ETF (ARKK) gained 35.49%, far outpacing the S&P 500’s return of 17.88% in the same period. But the performance has shifted this year.
So far in 2026, the Ark Innovation ETF is down 1.76%, while the S&P 500 surged 4.67% over the same period, according to Yahoo Finance data.
Wood gained a reputation after the Ark Innovation ETF delivered a 153% return in 2020. But her style also brings painful losses in bearish markets, as seen in 2022, when the Ark Innovation ETF tumbled more than 60%.
Those swings have weighed on Wood’s long-term gains. As of April 24, the Ark Innovation ETF has delivered a five-year annualized return of -9.01%, while the S&P 500 has an annualized return of 13.01% over the same period, according to data from Morningstar.
Wood focuses on high-tech companies across artificial intelligence, blockchain, biomedical technology, and robotics. She thinks these businesses have strong growth potential, though their volatility often causes fluctuations in the Ark’s funds.
According to Morningstar analyst Bella Albrecht, two of Wood’s Ark funds were among the worst-performing ETFs in the first quarter of 2026. The Ark Next Generation Internet ETF (ARKW) ranked second on the list, while the ARK Innovation ETF placed fifth.
“We’re not going into the Great Depression, we’re going into the great acceleration,” Wood said, pointing to how past technological revolutions reshaped economic growth.
She noted that global real GDP growth averaged just 0.6% between 1500 and 1900, before the Industrial Revolution lifted it to around 3% for more than a century. Now, she argues, a new wave of innovation could push growth much higher.
“We think [technologies] are going to take growth into the 7 to 8% range,” Wood said, adding that the number may actually be conservative.
Wood also noted that AI is driving down costs across industries.
“These technologies are deflationary,” she said. “AI training costs are dropping 75% per year, and inference costs are falling as much as 85% to even 98% annually.”
In a letter published in January, Wood rejects the “AI bubble” talk, saying it “is years away” and “the most powerful capital spending cycle in history” is coming.
From 2014 to 2024, the Ark Innovation ETF wiped out $7 billion in investor wealth, according to a March 2025 analysis by Morningstar’s analyst Amy Arnott. That made it the third-biggest wealth destroyer among mutual funds and ETFs in Arnott’s ranking. The analyst hasn’t updated the 2025 ranking.
In a March Bloomberg podcast, Wood says the global economy is not heading into a downturn, but into what she calls a “great acceleration” driven by AI and other breakthrough technologies.
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“What once was the cap in spending seems to have become a floor now that the AI, robotics, energy storage, blockchain technology, and multiomics sequencing platforms are ready for prime time,” she said.
Not all investors agree with Wood’s optimism. In the 12 months through April 21, the Ark Innovation ETF saw roughly $1.12 billion in net outflows, according to data from ETF research firm VettaFi.
In the 12 months through April 21, the Ark Innovation ETF saw roughly $1.12 billion in net outflows.Getty Images
On April 24, Wood’s Ark funds sold a total of 215,643 shares of Advanced Micro Devices Inc. (AMD), according to Ark’s daily trade information.
These shares are valued at approximately $75 million based on AMD’s latest closing price of $347.81. This is one of Wood’s largest sales recently.
Shares of AMD jumped 13.9% on April 24, bringing its gains to nearly 70% over the past month.
The recent gains were largely driven by rival Intel, which reported strong earnings and raised guidance on surging demand for data center CPUs as companies ramp up AI spending.
Related: Bank of America resets Intel stock price target after earnings
“The CPU is reinserting itself as the indispensable foundation of the AI era,” Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan said during an earnings call. “This isn’t just our wishful thinking, it’s what we hear from our customers.”
Intel’s results sent its stock higher by 23% on April 24 and sparked a rally in AMD, another major CPU maker.
Both AMD and Intel have told customers they plan to raise CPU prices across their product lines starting in March and April, Nikkei Asia reported last month. In fact, CPU prices have been raised multiple times this year, with an average increase of 10%-15%, according to Nikkei Asia.
Wall Street analysts have noticed a shift in AI demand.
“We figured CPUs were the next big bottleneck, but Intel’s results indicate that is already translating to very significant upside,” D.A. Davidson analyst Gil Luria wrote in a research note, CNBC reported. “The CPU is reinserting itself as an indispensable foundation of the AI era.”
D.A. Davidson has upgraded AMD to buy from neutral, raising AMD stock’s price target to $375, up from $220.
“We view Intel’s results as a precursor for a huge step-up for AMD’s CPU franchise and believe the structural shift toward agentic AI workloads is creating unprecedented demand for server CPUs,” the analyst said.
AMD is set to post its first quarter results on May 5, with investors looking for more updates on AI-driven sales and profits.
Wood’s move on AMD stock likely reflects profit-taking. Despite the massive dump, AMD remains one of her biggest holdings, ranking third in the Ark Innovation ETF’s fund with a market value of $416 million.
Other than selling AMD shares, Wood’s recent moves include buying X Energy (XE) and Amazon (AMZN) across Ark funds, while also trimming Rocket Lab (RKLB) shares.
Related: Goldman Sachs reassesses Apple stock ahead of earnings
