Cathie Wood, the chief of Ark Investment Management, sold approximately $16.2 million worth of Tesla stock after the electric vehicle maker fell roughly 6.23% over the past month and is down more than 9% year to date, according to a report by Yahoo Finance.
The sale came at a difficult moment for Wood's funds. Her flagship Ark Innovation ETF is down 2.85% so far this year, while the S&P 500 has surged 8.56% over the same period. That gap stands in contrast to 2025, when the Ark Innovation ETF gained 35.49%, far outpacing the S&P 500's return of 17.88%.
Wood's performance record has drawn attention from analysts. As of June 12, the Ark Innovation ETF has delivered a five-year annualized return of negative 8.06%, while the S&P 500 posted an annualized return of 11.84% over the same period, according to data from Morningstar. A March 2025 analysis by Morningstar analyst Amy Arnott found that from 2014 to 2024, the Ark Innovation ETF wiped out $7 billion in investor wealth, making it the third-biggest wealth destroyer among mutual funds and ETFs in her ranking.
Morningstar analyst Bella Albrecht noted that two of Wood's Ark funds ranked among the worst-performing ETFs in the first quarter of 2026. The Ark Next Generation Internet ETF ranked second on that list, while the Ark Innovation ETF placed fifth.
Wood built her reputation after the Ark Innovation ETF delivered a 153% return in 2020. But her style has also produced painful losses in bearish markets. In 2022, the Ark Innovation ETF tumbled more than 60%.
Despite the recent struggles, Wood has maintained an optimistic outlook on the broader economy and on interest rates. She has argued that productivity improvements brought by technology are helping drive the economy while reducing inflation. She also pointed to oil prices as a potential source of relief.
"I do believe Kevin Warsh knows that interest rates have to come down, mortgage rates at least. And if inflation comes down as productivity is increasing, no matter how strong the economy is, I think he will cut rates," Wood said.
She added that some major retailers are already absorbing cost pressures rather than passing them to consumers. "We're hearing other companies like Walmart and Costco saying that they are not passing price increases through as much as one would expect because they are seeing efficiency gains and productivity thanks in large part to AI and robotics," Wood said.
Wood focuses her investments on high-tech companies across artificial intelligence, blockchain, biomedical technology, and robotics. In a March Bloomberg podcast, she pushed back against recession fears. "We're not going into the Great Depression, we're going into the great acceleration," Wood said.
