Cathie Wood, chief executive officer and chief investment officer of ARK Investment Management LLC, speaks at the Sooner Than You Think conference in Brooklyn, New York on Tuesday, October 16, 2018.
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Cathie Wood said Ark Invest is still optimistic about Tesla and is continuing to buy up shares in the electric car maker.
“Our confidence in Tesla has grown as we have explored what ride-sharing could potentially add. It could significantly reduce risk, being a much more profitable business than electric vehicles,” Wood told CNBC’s Bob Pisani on ETF Edge on Wednesday. “While there is some debate at Tesla whether or not they should launch a human-powered ride-hailing network, we believe it would be a very good bridge to their autonomous strategy and we think they will decide to do so. “
According to FactSet, Ark Invest’s flagship fund – Ark Innovation – has brought in $ 5.3 billion in inflow this year alone. The ETF, which trades under the ticker ARKK, is up nearly 20% this year after an impressive gain of nearly 150% in 2020. Tesla is the largest stake in Ark Innovation, accounting for more than 8.5% of the total weight of the ETF.
Ark reports its transactions every day, and those updates reflect purchases in Tesla, Wood says. Tesla shares were down more than 2% on Wednesday, although they tapped slightly higher on Wood’s comments. Tesla shares are down 5% in the last month, but still 386% in the last 12 months.
“As time goes by and we learn about their expertise in artificial intelligence, the 30 billion miles they’ve accumulated in real driving data, nobody comes close, not even, I think Google is at 30 million, compared to 30 billion and we know that in AI [artificial intelligence] global and autonomous is AI that will win the company with the most data and best quality data, ”Wood added.
Wood said the chances of successful autonomous vehicles are increasing and so Ark’s price target will follow at some point.
Wood is an old bitcoin bull, with big bets on the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust. Wood told CNBC she expected institutional interest in bitcoin this year, but Tesla’s purchase of the digital currency was a surprise.
Ark Invest has more than $ 58 billion in assets under management.