Cathie Wood just made a move that raised eyebrows. The Ark Invest CEO, typically laser-focused on under-the-radar tech names, ventures into a popular mega-cap stock.
On April 7, she bought $15 million shares of an AI giant that's been struggling for weeks, likely looking to take advantage of the recent market selloff.
Wood’s flagship fund, the Ark Innovation ETF (ARKK) , is down 29.7% year-to-date as of April 8, while the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq Composite lost 15.3% and 19.4% during the same period, respectively. The ETF has wiped out the post-election gains since last November.
Opinions on Wood vary. To her supporters, she is a visionary with a remarkable 153% return in 2020. However, her longer-term performance has raised doubts about her aggressive, opportunistic approach.
As of April 7, Ark Innovation ETF, with $4.96 billion under management, has delivered an annualized three-year return of negative 12.3% and a five-year return of negative 0.4%.
In comparison, the S&P 500 index has a three-year annualized return of 5.6% and a five-year return of 15.5%.
The Ark Innovation ETF has seen a net outflow of $2.33 billion over the past 12 months through April 7, with $33 million exiting in the past five days, according to ETF research firm VettaFi.Marco Bello/Getty Images
Cathie Wood’s investment strategy explained
Wood’s investment strategy is straightforward: Her Ark ETFs typically buy shares in emerging high-tech companies in fields such as artificial intelligence, blockchain, biomedical technology and robotics.
Wood says these companies have the potential to reshape industries, but their volatility leads to major fluctuations in Ark funds' values.
Over the 10 years ending in 2024, the Ark Innovation ETF erased $7 billion in shareholder wealth, according to a recent analysis by Morningstar’s Amy Arnott. That made it the third-biggest wealth destroyer among mutual funds and ETFs in the ranking.
Cathie Wood on Trump’s tariffs
Wood recently questioned President Donald Trump’s tariffs on April 4 during the "In The Know with Cathie Wood” channel.
The markets have been in turmoil since Trump returned office. On April 2, Trump announced another round of sweeping tariffs of at least 10% on key U.S. trade partners, and the S&P 500 index lost 10% in the two following sessions.
Trump called the move “reciprocal,” arguing that other countries have taken advantage of the U.S. for too long. Wood questioned that.
“We know how he calculated his version of reciprocity, but it doesn't seem to make very much sense,” she said. "Things do feel a bit chaotic out there and the markets are convulsing as a result. There's a lot of uncertainty."
Wood warned that if Trump’s tariff plan isn’t managed carefully, it could trigger a bear market or even a recession. Still, she’s hopeful things will calm down as the negotiations move forward.
“Trump wants to be one of the greatest presidents ever... he’s not going to get there by throwing the economy into a recession and the stock market into a bear market,” she said.
But not all investors share Wood's optimism. The Ark Innovation ETF has seen a net outflow of $2.33 billion over the past 12 months through April 7, with $33 million exiting in the past five days, according to ETF research firm VettaFi.
Cathie Wood buys $15 million of Nvidia stock
On April 7, Wood’s Ark Innovation ETF bought 151,979 shares of Nvidia (NVDA) .
That chunk of stock is valued at roughly $15.2 million. The purchase was made after the stock slid 14% last week, bringing its year-to-date loss to 28.3%.
Nvidia shares rose 171% in 2024 and was one of the top performers of the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq. It’s often seen as the bellwether for AI-driven growth in the tech sector, given its dominance in supplying the chips that power data centers and generative AI applications.
While the White House recently said semiconductors are excluded from tariffs, the disruption could still ripple through downstream electronics manufacturing and could impact demand for semiconductors.
Nvidia’s supply chain is largely based in the Asia-Pacific region, with much of its chip production relying on foundries like Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSM) .
CEO Jensen Huang said he doesn’t expect tariffs to have a big effect on Nvidia’s outlook and that the company plans to move more of its manufacturing to the U.S. in the future.
“Tariffs will have a little impact for us short term,” he said.
However, even before the tariff announcement, Nvidia had been wrestling with headwinds.
The chipmaker's stock sank nearly 20% in Q1 2025, weighed down by the rollout of China's cheap AI model, DeepSeek, disappointing earnings, and a broader tech sell-off caused by economic uncertainties.
After the new tariffs, analysts at HSBC downgraded Nvidia’s stock to hold from buy with a price target of $120, down from $175. They pointed to limited GPU pricing power going forward and increasing mismatches in the supply chain.
Meanwhile, Bank of America analysts named Nvidia, alongside Broadcom (AVGO) , Lam Research (LRCX) , and Cadence Design Systems (CDNS) , as the firm's top semiconductor picks after the tariffs, citing solid balance sheets and strong fundamental exposure in AI, cloud, and complex computing.
According to stockcicle.com, Wood’s last Nvidia buy was in Q3 2022, when she added 7 million shares. Since then, she has steadily trimmed her stake.
