Cathie Wood's Net Worth: How She Achieved Rock-Star Celebrity Investor Status

Wood's name is synonymous with ARK Investment, which she co-founded in 2014 to offer active stock portfolios in an ETF format. ARK's ETFs gave impressive returns in 2020 and 2021, but the funds' value has dropped since then.

Wood is a firm believer in innovation to achieve sustained long-term growth. Thus, her investment strategy focuses heavily on the technology sector, including AI (artificial intelligence), clean energy, blockchain, genome sequencing, and robotics.

Wood's investment style and success has been recognized by multiple publications. She found a place on Forbes' 50 over 50 in 2021, Forbes' Most Powerful Women in 2021 and the Bloomberg 50 list in 2018.

Cathie Wood's net worth mirrors closely the performance of ARK funds. Thus, her net worth has seen wide fluctuations over the years.

For instance, her net worth was estimated to be around $400 million in 2021, but it declined to around $140 million, reflecting the performance of ARK Funds. Presently, Wood's net worth is estimated to be around $250 million.

Barron's, in 2020, reported that Wood owns a 50% to 75% stake in ARK. However, the amount of Wood's investment in ARK has never been made public.

Born on Nov. 26, 1955, in Los Angeles, Wood's parents were immigrants from Ireland. Her father served in the Irish Army, as well as the U.S. Air Force.

Wood completed her high school at Notre Dame Academy in Los Angeles, and she graduated from the University of Southern California (USC) with a Bachelor of Science degree in finance and economics.

During her graduation, Wood got the chance to learn from economist Arthur Laffer, who later became her mentor. Laffer, who is the inventor of the Laffer Curve that explains the relationship between tax rates and tax revenue, had served as an advisor to Presidents Ronald Reagan and Donald Trump.

Wood currently resides in Wilton, Conn., and has three children, while her ex-husband, Robert Wood, passed away in 2018. She is a devout Christian and bases many of her investing strategies on her faith.

While at USC, Wood worked at Capital Group as an assistant economist. After completing her graduation, she joined Jennison Associates in 1980.

After working for 18 years at Jennison Associates in various capacities, she co-established Tupelo Capital Management hedge fund in collaboration with Lulu C. Wang in 1998.

In 2001, she joined AllianceBernstein as a portfolio manager and a limited partner. She left the research and investment company after working for 12 years to start ARK Invest.

During her stint as a portfolio manager, Wood focused on thematic investing, a strategy that revolves around investing in long-term trends. She carried the same investing strategy over to ARK.

Wood founded ARK Invest in 2014 with her own savings. The company took about three years to break even. Though ARK stands for Active Research Knowledge, its name is also a reference to the Ark of the Covenant.

ARK Invest believes in fostering new ideas, and thus, gives its research to anyone who wants it. Wood, in fact, treats ARK Invest research as a“open-source software.” ARK Invest even posted their Tesla valuation analysis online.

In 2020, ARK was among the top-performing investment companies after the company's investment in Tesla, Bitcoin, Coinbase, and Robinhood gained significantly. Also, the company's flagship Ark Innovation ETF increased by 157% in 2020, and by February 2021, ARK Invest was managing about $50 billion in assets.

In 2022, however, many stocks in ARK's portfolio plunged significantly due to the unexpected market downturn. Moreover, exposure to volatile tech stocks and digital assets magnified losses for ARK Invest.

Despite the losses, Wood was confident that markets would make a comeback in the long-term. The fund made a notable turnaround in the first half of 2023 and returned over 70% in 2023, but 2024 isn't going well for the star investor.

Investors are starting to lose confidence in the fund, which has posted a negative 28% return for the past three years (annualized), compared to 11% return from S&P 500 during the same period.

Wood primarily makes money from the fees charged from investors for managing their funds invested in ARK. ARK's annual expense ratio, or management fee is 0.75% for its actively managed ETFs , resulting in a fee of $7.5 million for every $1 billion invested. Assuming Wood owns 50% to 75% of ARK (based on Barron's report), with an expense ratio of 0.75% she would have pocketed $3.75 million to $5.63 million for every $1 billion.

ARK's flagship ARK Innovation ETF registered consistent growth until 2020 and reached a peak in early 2021. In 2020, Wood's ARK was ranked among the top investment companies after the fund's investment in Tesla, Bitcoin, Coinbase, and Robinhood gained significantly.

The company's flagship Ark Innovation ETF gained 157% in 2020, and the company was reportedly managing about $50 billion in assets as of February 2021.

Wood has been bullish on Tesla since the company's early days and it paid off well. Also, ARK posted massive returns with investments in Zoom and Roku during the coronavirus pandemic.

In the investing world, Wood is widely praised for her positive and forward-thinking investment strategy. Her success in the investing space can be largely attributed to her active management approach, as well as investing in companies with substantial growth prospects, even if it means taking more risk.

Wood is known for making big bets on tech-driven small and large companies that put emphasis on“disruptive innovation” – ranging from DNA sequencing, blockchain technology, artificial intelligence (AI), energy storage and robotics.

Wood is of the opinion that technology has greatly improved in the last two decades and it now costs much lower as well, making it convenient for companies to take advantage of the advancement in technology.

In the tech space, Wood focuses on companies that empathize growing their businesses, even if it means being non-profitable in the short-term. She believes that stocks related to disruptive technology innovation will outperform in the long-run, a belief that is in-line with Wood's thematic investing strategy as well.

In addition to growth, Wood has used the value-investing approach as well. In 2022, when the stock market was in a downturn, Wood added more stocks of its existing holdings, including Tesla, despite its poor performance at the time.

Wood, who is bullish on cryptocurrency as well despite steep losses across the industry, believes the blockchain will eventually result in increased transparency and decentralization in the financial sector.

Wood has been criticized for focusing on specific businesses, such as electric vehicles or genomics. Such a strategy makes investors more vulnerable to downturns in those industries. She also faced criticism for investing considerable amounts to many high-growth, high-risk stocks.

In April 2024,“Mad Money” star Jim Cramer criticized Wood for her bet on EVs.“Cathie Wood making bold claims about 80% of vehicles being EV in just a few years ... I thing this PAINFUL...” Cramer tweeted on April 3.

Morningstar called Wood the Worst“Wealth Destroyer” based on the data that the ARK ETF Trust wiped out $14.3 billion in investors' wealth over the past 10 years.

Star investor Daniel Loeb, chief executive of Third Point, criticized Wood's investing strategy after Wood defended her investment philosophy following her fund's poor performance in 2022.

“Anyone teaching a value investing class or one on investment psychology should use this memo as a treatise to study the mindset of stonk hodlers,” Loeb tweeted at the time. The term“Stonk hodlers” is slang for investors who hold (hodl) onto their stocks (stonks) for too long.

Cathie Wood's net worth is reported to be around $250 million to $300 million in 2024. Her net worth was estimated to be around $400 million in 2021.

Cathie Wood's portfolio's top holdings include Tesla, Block and Shopify. She is also bullish on Bitcoin.

Wood prefers investing in disruptive technologies and this is one reason why Wood likes Tesla. Also, she likes Tesla's dominance in autonomous driving and robotics initiatives.

Undoubtedly, Cathie Wood has left her mark on the investing world with her unique and out-of-box investment style. Wood's bold forecasts and imaginative techniques have given her rock-star celebrity investor status.

Her fund may be down now, but her strategies have made tons of money for investors in the past. If you as an investor are following Wood, it is recommended that you match her tactics to your risk tolerance and investing objectives for better results.

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