After experiencing a series of "betting mistakes" and three years of painful decline, Casey Wood, the head of Ark Investment and known as the "female version of Buffett," has recently been "mercilessly abandoned" by investors.
Data shows that six actively managed exchange traded funds (ARK ETFs) under Ark Investment have experienced a net outflow of $2.2 billion this year, exceeding the total inflow of funds for the entire year of 2023. Analysts have pointed out that this is mainly because Mu Jie's fund has placed too much emphasis on stocks such as Tesla and Roku that have performed exceptionally poorly this year.
It is reported that the total assets managed by ARK ETFs are $11.1 billion, a decrease of 81% from the peak of $59 billion in 2021.
Although the Federal Reserve's interest rate cut schedule has been constantly postponed, it seems that the interest rate cut within the year is already "guaranteed". Coupled with the wave of artificial intelligence (AI), even the S&P 500 index, which has recently experienced a pullback, has risen by 5% this year. These backgrounds should have been favorable for Ms. Mu. However, its flagship product ARK Innovation ETF (ARKK) has fallen by 72% from its peak in February 2021.
It has been proven that Sister Mu placed the wrong bet on the treasure. Some of her big bets are struggling, with Tesla being the most typical. For a long time, ARKK has listed Tesla as one of its most important holdings, but so far this year, Tesla's stock price has fallen by more than 41%, seriously affecting ARKK's performance: it has fallen by more than 13% so far this year.
She has recently been arguing for Tesla that the company's stock price may reach $2000 in the next five years, and Tesla closed at $144.61 on Tuesday.
At a time when the assets managed by Sister Mu have sharply shrunk, her disruptive innovation investment strategy has gone through three painful years. Analysts believe that loyal investors have become frustrated because for ARK's investment strategy that focuses on growth and disruptive technology, they should have performed better this year, but they have made the wrong bet.
The other major holdings of ARK Fund include Roku and Unity Software, both of which have experienced a stock price decline of over 30% so far this year, while Zoom Video has experienced a stock price decline of 16% so far this year.
In addition, Mu Jie also perfectly missed out on NVIDIA. Her fund sold all of NVIDIA's holdings in January 2023, and since then, NVIDIA's stock price has roughly quadrupled.
As of the end of last year, according to data from Morningstar, ARK ETFs destroyed more wealth in the past decade than any other asset management company, resulting in a total loss of $14.3 billion for investors.