Alphabet, Robinhood and Baidu: how Cathie Wood's portfolio changed in the third quarter

ARK Invest ended the third quarter with assets rising to $16.8 billion - up from $13.64 billion in the second quarter. Cathie Wood stepped up investments in AI, digital assets and multi-omics, returned to Chinese giants and reduced stakes in companies where price growth outpaced results. The portfolio reshuffle has not changed the overall course: Wood continues to focus on disruptive innovation - technologies that, in her estimation, can radically change established markets.

Tesla remains Cathie Wood's main bet. In the third quarter, she bought more than 520,000 shares and brought the stake to 3.59 million securities - almost $1.6 billion. Tesla accounts for 9.5% of the portfolio, and it is the largest asset of all ARK Invest funds.

Other notable purchases by the fund were in companies related to artificial intelligence and technology infrastructure. Wood more than doubled its stake in Alphabet (+154%), doubled its investment in online real estate service Zillow (+110%) and almost doubled its stake in design automation developer Synopsys (+91%). In the autonomous transportation sector, the fund added shares of Aurora Innovation (+74%). ARK Invest continued to bet on semiconductors: it added Advanced Micro Devices (+13%), Nvidia (+16%) and significantly increased its investment in chip testing equipment maker Teradyne (+26%). On a quarterly call with the team, Cathie Wood noted that the surge of interest in AI comes with real progress, not just hype. She said early signs of revenue acceleration at companies like Snowflake and UiPath confirm that demand for AI products is becoming sustainable.

Significant changes occurred in the portfolio share in biotech. The sharpest increase was in Exact Sciences, a developer of cancer diagnostic tests: the position grew by 6,072,589% - to 2.19 million shares - and is now valued at $119.6 million. The fund also significantly increased its investment in Prime Medicine (+136%), which develops gene editing technologies. Additionally, Wood bought securities in genetics, diagnostics and sequencing companies Beam Therapeutics (+25%), Veracyte (+18%) and Illumina (+26%). Shia Wilbur, ARK's multi-omics analyst, notes that interest in the industry is picking up markedly. A combination of factors is contributing to this, she says: regulators are increasingly giving the green light to new platforms, clinical data is becoming more compelling, and biotech deals are confirming the growing demand for gene editing technologies. Such a backdrop, ARK estimates, paves the way for a shift from niche programs to therapies for widespread chronic diseases.

Cathie Wood strengthened its digital asset block in the third quarter. The largest new position was BitMine Immersion Technologies, a provider of infrastructure for high-performance mining: the fund bought 7.5 million shares, investing $387.9 million, with the asset taking up 2.3% of the portfolio. Two other new positions are soccer MCO Brera Holdings (7.3 million shares, $218.4 million) and crypto platform Bullish, which develops exchange and information services (2.6 million shares, $163.9 million). ARK also increased its stake in Circle Internet Group, the issuer of USDC steiblcoin, by 2% - it is now valued at $393.4m.

After a three-year pause, Wood continues to step up investments in Chinese companies. In a call with the team in October, she said ARK had revised its position after Beijing changed its rhetoric and emphasized new productive forces, signaling renewed support for innovation. In the third quarter, the fund bought Baidu securities - the stake rose 73% to 508,400 shares worth $67 million. Alibaba Group appeared in the portfolio: the position opened at $37.6 million and occupies 0.2% of the portfolio. Another new position was the developer of autonomous mobility systems Pony.ai: the fund bought 1.27 million shares worth $28.6 million.

Wood rebalanced its portfolio in the third quarter, with sales and investment reductions in fintech, biotech, cryptocurrency instruments and a number of technology companies.

The stake in Guardant Health, a developer of oncology diagnostic tests, decreased most noticeably: it fell by 72%, with the remaining stake valued at about $49.7 mln. The second-largest seller was fintech platform Pagaya Technologies (minus 62%), which uses artificial intelligence to analyze credit risks. Stakes in electronics contractor Jabil and specialty alloys maker Carpenter Technology were cut significantly (by 42% each).

Companies in other technology sectors were also hit by the cuts. In the sports data segment, Wood reduced its stake in Genius Sports (by 36%), and in industrial technology - in Xometry, an online marketplace for custom manufacturing (by 31%). In biotech, the fund reduced its positions in Ionis Pharmaceuticals (down 30%) and portable analytical device maker 908 Devices (down 27%).

ARK Invest has reduced exposure to crypto and AI infrastructure, with a reduced position in Coinbase (down 9%) and several companies that had shown sharp growth in previous quarters. Wood stressed that ARK managers make sure that the hype around AI and cryptocurrencies does not outpace fundamentals, so they periodically reallocate capital from overvalued assets to those where, in their estimation, the growth potential has not yet been realized.

Some of ARK's smaller holdings closed out completely. Faro Technologies (3D scanners), Ansys (engineering modeling), Compugen and Brainsway (biotech) disappeared from the report, as well as several ETFs and technology issuers with stakes at the level of hundredths of a percent.

According to the 13F report at the end of September, ARK Invest has 196 assets in its portfolio with a total value of $16.8 billion ( $13.6 billion in the second quarter).

Among the largest positions in the portfolio after Tesla are digital services and data infrastructure: Coinbase's investments are valued at about $808 million, while stakes in Roku, Palantir and Roblox, which declined in the third quarter, are valued at $736 million each. The position in Robinhood remains significant: even after selling 36% of its securities, its value exceeds $718 million. ARK Invest's top ten positions also include Shopify, biotech CRISPR Therapeutics, medical platform Tempus AI and chip maker AMD.

Within the fund lineup itself, the focus is unevenly distributed. The ARK Innovation ETF (ARKK) remains the flagship - at the end of September it held $8.4 billion, i.e. half of all assets managed by Wood and her team. Next come the next-generation Internet funds (ARKW, about $2.5 billion), autonomous systems and robotics (ARKQ, $1.8 billion) and genomic technologies (ARKG, about $1.3 billion).

In the third quarter, ARK continued to follow the course that Cathie Wood has been declaring for several years now: to concentrate capital in companies that, in the fund's assessment, have the potential to reduce costs, increase the availability of technology and create new markets. The updated portfolio reflects this logic - with larger bets on AI, digital assets and multi-omics, and a more careful approach to segments where price growth has already outpaced near-term results.

This article was AI-translated and verified by a human editor