Cathie Wood says inflation will ‘unwind pretty quickly’ and that stocks will probably be fine — here are 3 of her top picks to keep riding the bull
Cathie Wood, superstar stock picker and CEO of investment firm ARK Invest, believes the stock market is in a bull run that will continue putting smiles on the faces of investors — so long as the U.S. can avoid a recession.
Despite the sky-will-fall predictions of investors like Michael Burry, Wood recently told Barron’s that the market is “probably going to be fine,” explaining that value stocks, cyclical stocks and defensive stocks all continue to climb despite what COVID-19 and a disrupted economy have been able to throw at it.
Inflation, she said, will “unwind pretty quickly.”
Despite recent turbulence, Wood’s most well-known ETF, ARK Innovation, is up roughly 118% over the last three years. Let’s look at three companies the fund holds significant positions in that should benefit nicely from a continued bull run.
You might even be able to get a piece of them with some of your extra cash.
Shopify (SHOP)
Wood believes Canadian e-commerce giant Shopify is in a position to challenge the space’s biggest player, Amazon, in the coming years. Thanks to its differentiated service and first-mover advantage, Shopify’s upside remains attractive according to Wood.
“We’re trying to figure out how Amazon is going to deal with this notion of individuals seeing something on Instagram or elsewhere on Facebook or on Twitter, or on Snap and just buying there,” Wood recently told BNN Bloomberg. “That’s a Shopify-enabled commerce opportunity and we think it’s going to be big.”
Shopify is already pretty big. In Q3, the company raked in over $1.1 billion in revenue and currently boasts a market cap greater than $180 billion.
The company’s stock is up about 22% this year, which is good news for ARKK investors. The fund holds more than 425,000 shares in Shopify.
Block (SQ)
If there’s one thing Cathie Wood’s a fan of, it’s disruption. And Block (formerly known as Square) is positioned to be one of the fintech industry’s biggest disruptors.
Block started out as a digital payment platform, and is still among the space’s leaders, but its expanded slate of products — the ever-evolving Cash App, recent offerings for making crypto investing easier, the recently acquired Afterpay — should allow the company to occupy a growing role in an increasingly cashless global economy.
Block’s Q3 gross profits came in at $1.13 billion, a year over year increase of 43%. But the company’s share price has been all over the place this year. It’s currently down about 25% year to date.
Block still takes up a fair amount of space in ARKK — about 3.3 million shares’ worth, which accounts for 3.3% of the portfolio.
DraftKings (DKNG)
If you’re willing to bet on the stock market, it makes a certain kind of sense to target a company that has gambling at the heart of its business.
Sports betting is booming — particularly online. The industry generated about $131 billion in revenue in 2020, according to Zion Market Research, and is projected to grow to almost $180 billion by 2028.
As one of the leading fantasy sports and online bookies in the space, DraftKings stands to be at the forefront of that growth.
In Q3, it expanded its operations into three additional states and brought in revenue of $213 million, a 60% increase compared to the same period last year.
Wood continues to like what she sees. In addition to ARKK holding more than 12.1 million DraftKings shares, she recently added another 55,400 shares in the company to the Ark Fintech Innovation ETF.
A finer alternative
To be sure, growth stocks can be extremely volatile. And not everyone feels comfortable holding assets that make wild swings every week.
If you want to invest in something that has little correlation with the ups and downs of the stock market and the crypto market, you might want to consider an overlooked asset: fine art.
Contemporary artwork has already outperformed the S&P 500 by a commanding 174% over the past 25 years, according to the Citi Global Art Market chart.
Investing in art by the likes of Banksy and Andy Warhol used to be an option only for the ultra-rich, like Wood. But with a new investing platform, you can invest in iconic artworks, too, just like Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates do.
This article provides information only and should not be construed as advice. It is provided without warranty of any kind.
