Cathie Wood seems to be getting the last laugh. The CEO, co-founder, and ace stock picker at Ark Invest turned heads with monster returns in 2000, only to fall short in many of the subsequent years. She's bouncing back in 2025, with many of her ETFs coasting past the market. She publishes her transactions at the end of every trading day, giving us a peek into what she's buying and selling.
Ark Invest added to just three existing positions in Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing(NYSE: TSM) , Nextdoor(NYSE: KIND), and Blade Air Mobility(NASDAQ: BLDE) on Tuesday. Let's look Wood's latest latest purchases.
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing is the world's largest semiconductor foundry, commanding nearly two-thirds of the global market. Although it isn't a household name for many investors, it's now one of just 10 U.S.-listed stocks to command a market cap north of $1 trillion. The stock has beaten the market over the past year, but TSMC is still trading lower year to date. Chip stocks tend to be cyclical. However, TSMC has been refreshingly consistent. It has posted just two years of negative revenue growth over the past 20 years.
Demand is undeniably rising. Revenue has topped 38% in each of the past four quarters, accelerating to a 42% year-over-year jump in its latest quarter. That translates to a 35% increase in U.S. dollars, still an impressive uptick.
Image source: Getty Images.
Net income soared 60% in that mid-April report. The bears will argue that semiconductors are a commodity, but this is a high-margin business. TSMC's net profit margin clocked in just above 43% in the first quarter.
The stock's 1.7% yield may not seem like much, but the company has never had to reduce its payout rate since initiating distributions two decades ago. It's also worth pointing out that it's the highest yielding stock among the 10 names with market caps north of $1 trillion.
There are geopolitical risks, but TSMC is doing its best to play nice in the thick of a potential trade war: Earlier this month, it began building out its third chip plant in Arizona.
The near-term growth prospects continue to be bright. The surge in AI-related demand has been more than enough to offset smartphone seasonality or any other setbacks.
Nextdoor
Even if you're not a Nextdoor visitor, there's a good chance that one of your neighbors is a regular on the hyperlocal platform. Nextdoor is an online discussion board with more than 46 million weekly active users, covering nearly a third of all U.S. households. There typically isn't a lot of heft to the chatter that spans across 260,000 different neighborhood communities in this country, and another 80,000 internationally. It all adds up in volume when pets get lost and neighbors need a handyman recommendation, but monetizing the neighborhood forum has proved challenging: Despite the brisk activity, trailing revenue clocks in just shy of $250 million. Profitability has been even more elusive, though the losses finally started to contract last year.
The good news is that Nextdoor can survive the cash burn -- for now. It has a juicy net cash position that shrinks its $555 million in market cap to an enterprise value of just $175 million. The bad news is that Nextdoor has a lot of liquidity on a per-share basis because the stock has plummeted more than 80% since the company went public as a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) in late 2021. The stock has fallen nearly 40% just over the past year, but Wood sees that as a buying opportunity. She has bought shares of Nextdoor for six consecutive trading days.
Blade Air Mobility
Short-range air travel is niche that Wood has been aggressively buying, even as the market itself is still years away from financial viability. Blade Air Mobility is a leader in this field, with a fleet of helicopters used to transport vital organs for transplants and a consumer business catering to affluent travelers who want to be whisked from airports into densely populated cities.
There are some downsides. Revenue growth has decelerated sharply, the company bowed out of Canada last summer, and cutting-edge rivals are working on next-gen electric aircraft tech and signing airline deals that could grab market share from Blade Air's already thin business. All told, the shares are down 18% so far this year. Wood also owns positions in some of these high-tech upstarts invading Blade Air's airspace, but she apparently thinks this company is a compelling value right now.
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Rick Munarriz has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
