🔥 Cathie Wood Spent BILLIONS on These High Growth Stocks (Q3 Review)

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Hey there. My name is Alex. If you're new to Ticker Symbol YOU, welcome. This channel
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focuses on connecting the dots between ARK Invest's technology and market research, stock
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picks, and daily trading data. The goal is to highlight and track the best investment
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opportunities among the companies that are transforming our daily lives. That means I
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tend to focus on newer companies that are using advanced technologies to solve modern
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problems that legacy companies aren't doing a great job solving for one reason or another.
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Because ARK Invest's funds are all conviction-weighted and actively managed by the same person, Cathie
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Wood, looking at their combined investing data should reveal the companies and trends
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that the ARK Invest team feels will provide the best returns five years from now, given
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today's valuations. Likewise, looking at the data within each fund should show us which
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trends and technology platforms are currently winning in a given area, like genomics, fintech,
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robotics, or energy storage. So, for the last year or so, I've been doing quarterly reviews
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of ARK Invest's trading data to uncover these companies and trends. I've been calling these
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quarterly reviews the State of the ARK but since there's just too much to cover in a
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single episode, ARK Week is probably more appropriate. So, welcome to ARK Week. This
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is part one, which reviews the changes in ARK Invest's positions when we combine their
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six actively managed funds. Because I treat your time as an investment, this episode also
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contains a quarterly review of Ticker Symbol YOU, so you can see what I've been up to and
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how your investment is paying off big time. The next episodes, which will be released
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shortly, will focus on the trading data within each of ARK Invest's individual funds and
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the relevant news stories affecting their performance. You can watch these episodes
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in any order and timestamps are enabled for your convenience.
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So, let's get right into the data, starting with ARK Invest's assets under management,
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or A U M, over the last quarter. The reason I always cover assets under management first
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is because that's the baseline for looking at the changes in ARK Invest's positions.
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On July 1st 2021, ARK Invest's funds totaled just over 49 billion dollars combined. On
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September 27th, Cathie Wood's combined funds had just under 41 billion dollars in them,
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marking a 17% decrease in total assets under management. Here's how that breaks down, fund
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by fund. The AUM of ARKK, which is ARK Invest's flagship innovation fund, shrank by 17% over
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the quarter, from 25.4 billion dollars to 21.1 billion dollars. The two things you should
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know about ARKK are that it's bigger than all the other ARK funds combined and that
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it contains no unique stocks, meaning any position inside ARKK is also inside at least
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one other ARK fund. The other ARK Invest funds contain anywhere from 14 to 22 percent fewer
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assets in them than at the start of the quarter, resulting in that total decrease of 17% I'm
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talking about. Here's how I use that number. This is a table of all of ARK Invests positions
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when you combine Cathie Wood's six actively managed funds. Each row is one stock, the
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rows are ordered by ARK Invest's total investment in that stock, and the rows are colored by
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the change in that total investment over the quarter RELATIVE TO the change in ARK Invest's
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assets under management. So, positions that are in white shrank by around 17%, right in
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line with ARK's funds overall. Green rows show positions that shrank by less than 17%,
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meaning they grew relative to the funds, and red rows shrank by more than 17%, meaning
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they shrank by more than ARK Invest's average. Using that framework for analyzing ARK Invest's
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data, all we have to do is look for is the darkest green rows. Pretty cool, right?
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Speaking of pretty cool, let me quickly point out two things that should save you even more
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time before I walk through this data. First, this third column shows you the change in
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share price for the stock between the start and end of the quarter. For example, many
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of ARK Invest's top holdings like Teladoc, Roku, UiPath, and Zoom are trading at big
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discounts compared to a quarter ago. Second, this entire State of the ARK presentation
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is available for download, for free at ticker symbol you dot com, so you don't have to worry
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about pausing to take screenshots unless you really want to. I'm building out ticker symbol
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you dot com so you have easy access to all my resources and spreadsheets and presentations
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without having to hunt through dozens of video descriptions to find them. Here's the full
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link if you want to check it out and I'll put it in the description below as well. Great,
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now let's go through the changes in ARK Invest's combined funds over the quarter.
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The thing that I think all of Cathie Wood's biggest positions have in common is that most
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investors are misunderstanding at least part of the bigger picture. That's certainly true
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for Unity Software, ticker symbol U, UiPath, ticker symbol P A T H, and Palantir, ticker
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symbol P L T R, all of which are massive billion-dollar positions that have increased by over 33 percent
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in the last 3 months. Unity Software allows developers to create 2D and 3D interactive
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experiences for every type of platform, including PCs and Macs, gaming consoles, and mobile
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devices. Their primary audience right now is game developers, but they're extending
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their development ecosystem to support much more than just video games. The thing Unity's
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platform focuses on is lowering the barrier of entry to develop these visual experiences.
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That means everyone, from artists and storytellers to doctors and engineers, can start bringing
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their visions and visualizations to life much faster instead of having to learn a skill
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that's very different from their existing skillset. As a result Unity Software is a
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top 10 position inside ARKK, ARKW, ARKQ, and ARKX and it's worth noting that while the
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stock rallied by almost 30% over the quarter, Cathie Wood has pretty much retained all of
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her shares, indicating that she feels the stock will at least double from current prices
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over the next 5 years.
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UiPath, ticker symbol P A T H, is a software company that focuses on “RPA”, or robotics
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process automation. UiPath defines RPA as “a software technology that makes it easy
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to build, deploy, and manage software robots that emulate human actions interacting with
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digital systems and software.” So, they make software bots to replace work done by humans
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through automation. Their bots are often used to manage simple but monotonous workflows
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like copying and pasting data between programs, sending automated responses based on incoming
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messages, or organizing large amounts of data based on a few rules. So, an example workflow
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for UiPath's bots could be parsing emails to retrieve data that need to be entered in
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a bunch of other forms or applications based on specified criteria. If that sounds like
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your job, you're not alone; the total addressable market for robotics process automation is
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massive, which is why UiPath is one of only two companies that Cathie Wood has in all
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six ARK Invest funds. UiPath is currently trading over 20% lower than at the start of
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the quarter and Cathie Wood has almost doubled her position in it as a result, which means
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ARK Invest now owns close to 3% of the entire company. If that's not conviction, I don't
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know what is.
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Palantir, ticker symbol P L T R, builds advanced data analytics software platforms that are
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used by the government and other large institutions. These same institutions tend to have the hardest
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time with big data at scale because they were built well before the world went digital.
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Palantir's software analyzes huge sets of data from many sources to help organizations
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make better decisions, often in near real-time. So, where I think Palantir REALLY adds value
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is by helping these large companies quickly make what's called the “digital twin” of their
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organization and then solving several key big data challenges to get their client solutions
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up and running very quickly. Palantir is also extending their reach to smaller companies
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and even start-ups through their new Foundry for Builders program. Because their technologies
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are so industry-agnostic, Palantir is the other stock that's in all six ARK Invest's
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funds. Palantir's stock price has been steadily climbing basically all quarter, so Cathie
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Wood has been buying and selling shares as a result. Even with some of her big recent
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sales, Cathie Wood is holding almost 25% more shares and 35% more money in Palantir today
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than at the start of the quarter, making it ARK Invest's 12th biggest position overall
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when you combine their 6 actively managed funds. I spend a lot of time talking about
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Palantir because I used to be a rocket scientist and radar engineer on government projects
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at MIT, where I focused on big data, artificial intelligence, and automated decision support.
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I'm not saying that to toot my own horn; I'm mentioning that because it's the exact kind
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of work that Palantir helps some of their biggest clients do at scale through their
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Gotham platform, which was their first and is currently still their biggest platform,
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so I feel I can add a little value to the Palantir conversation.
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Draftkings, ticker symbol D K N G, has also made it into ARK Invest's top 20 positions
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this past quarter after Cathie Wood increased her share count by almost 24%. Draftkings
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is a suite of integrated apps for paid fantasy sports, online sports betting or OSB, and
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iGaming, which are casino games like blackjack and slots. One reason they're three separate
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apps is because those activities can be regulated differently in each state, so there are nuances
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when it comes to what Draftkings can offer, promote, cross-sell, and so on within each
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app. The Draftkings integrated platform allows them to use data from each of these apps to
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target ads and personalize experiences on any one of them. They can also do cool things
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like generating custom bets in real-time based on what's going on in live sports events.
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Draftkings is in the process of acquiring Golden Nugget Online Gaming, ticker symbol
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G N O G, for $1.5 billion dollars and they're building an NFT-based collectibles marketplace
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for things like digital sports cards. Because of the wide variety of innovations coming
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out of Draftkings in the realm of digital sports and casino gaming, D K N G stock finds
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itself in ARKK, as well as ARKW and ARKF, ARK Invest's funds focused on next-generation
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internet applications and fintech innovations, respectively. If you're interested in my full-length
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deep dives on Unity Software, UiPath, Palantir, or Draftkings, I've created one convenient
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playlist for you with all of them and many more. I'll leave a link to that in the top
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right-hand corner of your screen right now and in the description below as well. Note
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that all four of these stocks – Unity Software, UiPath, Palantir, and Draftkings are also
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big positions in ARKW, which I'll cover more in the next generation internet application
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portion of ARK Week.
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If we instead sort this table by the percent change in position size instead of ARK Invest's
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total position size, we get the list of positions that Cathie Wood increased the most over the
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quarter. Since your time is valuable and many of these positions are very small, I won't
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go through these one by one. Instead, I'll highlight a few things that I hope you find
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helpful. First, here are Unity, UiPath, Palantir, and Draftkings again, so you can see where
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they land among all of these other increased positions. The reason I highlighted them in
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this episode instead of waiting to talk about them when I cover each individual fund is
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that they're by far the highest-ranking positions on this list, which makes these increases
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the biggest positive changes in ARK Invest's conviction overall. If that's not clicking
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for you, trust me, I totally get it. If you look back at my earlier content, it took me
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a while to really figure out a logically consistent way to look at all this data. Let me say it
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another way: these are the positions that were already fairly close to ARK's position
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in Tesla at the start of the quarter that ended up moving even closer to their Tesla
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position at the end of the quarter. Tesla, ticker symbol T S L A, is ARK Invest's number
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1 position and that rank hasn't changed, while Unity Software was ARK Invest's 11th biggest
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position 90 days ago and is their third biggest position now, bringing it much closer to Tesla
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in terms of ARK Invest's overall conviction in the company, since these funds are all
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conviction weighted.
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That increase in overall position can be because Cathie Wood bought more shares or because
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she decided not to sell shares after they jumped in price, so I like to look at the
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change in share count and change in price together to see which stocks Cathie Wood bought
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a lot of and which of those are still down in price. Those are the ones I'd research
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first since there might be a good near-term buying opportunity among them. Those would
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be Quantum SI, ticker symbol Q S I, Signify Health, S G F Y, Verve Therapeutics, V E R
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V, Stoneco, S T N E, Aerovironment, A V A V, UiPath, P A T H, Repare Therapeutics, R
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P T X, and Roblox, R B L X. If you don't mind stocks that went sideways instead of their
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price going down, you can add Disney, ticker symbol D I S, Komatsu, K M T U Y, Discovery,
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D S Y, Draftkings, D K N G, and Jaws Spitfire, S P F R, to the list. Stocks like Signify
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Health and Roblox, as well as Etsy, ticker symbol E T S Y, Arcturus Therapeutics, A R
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C T, Veracyte, V C Y T, and Pagerduty, ticker symbol P D, are also interesting because they
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increased to the point where they're nearing ARK Invest's Top 50 or even Top 30 positions,
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out of roughly 160 or so positions in total. Typically, what I do when I see this happen
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is throw these companies on my watch list and start researching them as best I can.
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For example, what does ARK Invest know about Etsy that I don't? Can I put aside what I
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think I know about Etsy and find the reason that Cathie Wood almost doubled her position
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in it over the quarter? This is what I mean by data-driven investing and not letting my
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gut feelings rule out certain stocks. Comment below with your thoughts on these companies.
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Are there any that specifically interest you? If so, how come? Are there any you want to
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learn more about or want me to do a deep dive on? Should any of these other companies be
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in the 100 thousand dollar public portfolio I'm starting when Ticker Symbol YOU reaches
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100 thousand subscribers, or at least be on that watch list? I'm excited to hear your
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thoughts and I'll cover these companies in more detail in the next parts of ARK Week.
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Speaking of data-driven investing and Ticker Symbol YOU… how's that for a smooth segue…
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I treat your time as an investment, so here's how your investment is growing and what you
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can expect going forward. This past quarter was my first full quarter since I quit my
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day job to pursue my passions in research, technology, investing, and video journalism.
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I quit back in May, just in time for growth stocks to collapse, along with my portfolio,
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ARK Invest's portfolios, and of course, the interest in this channel. All of those things
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are just now starting to break even. And that's great because, as you know, the best time
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to double down is near the bottom, so that's what I did. I made 23 new episodes, almost
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double what I could make before I went full-time. I switched from talking about world-changing
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technologies and ARK Invest's Big Ideas to talking about the stocks that I felt were
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crashing the hardest and the biggest opportunities I saw to buy into that future. Even with almost
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none of my videos this quarter touching my top 10, it was my best quarter ever in terms
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of views and the channel is slowly creeping toward 5 million views and 100 thousand subscribers,
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with its one-year anniversary still ahead of us. I'm really happy I can add a little
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value to so many people each week. That added value also seems to have attracted all sorts
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of potential sponsors: Finance apps, social media platforms, advertising agencies, VPN
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solutions, the list goes on and on. I don't use the products or services from any of them,
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so I rejected them. Denying sponsors that are irrelevant to my audience is another way
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I can respect your time. After almost a year, I'm just now starting to engage with a handful
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of sponsors that I don't see a lot of other finance channels talk about. I'm not going
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to say which ones just yet but I'm excited to work with them because they're all directly
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focused on education, investing, or both and they're all brands I feel have a lot of integrity,
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which means a lot to me. Another way I can respect your time is by cutting one ad per
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video, which I've been doing since this channel became eligible for ads last Winter. If each
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ad is a quarter minute long and every viewer is spared one ad, that's 375,000 minutes of
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ads I spared you this quarter. Or over 250 days. In total, I've saved my viewers over
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2 YEARS of combined ad watching since I've started cutting ads on this channel. I'm really
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proud of that, ARKF those ads.
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Speaking of things I'm proud of, the only reason I can keep cutting ads and denying
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sponsors is because of the wonderful support of my Patrons on Patreon and channel members,
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right here on YouTube. Hundreds of people go above and beyond by supporting the channel
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each and every month and that means the world to me. Supporters get a ton of extra and exclusive
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content, including monthly Q and A videos, access to all my data dashboards, like the
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one featured in this episode, early access to the State of the ARK, and I'm pretty consistently
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adding new benefits over time. Here are some other things I'm proud of that happened this
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quarter. I interviewed Simon Barnett, one of ARK Invest's Analysts focused on the genomics
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revolution. Simon and I talked for over 2 hours and he taught me a ton about the innovations
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coming to every aspect of health care. Simon, if you're watching, I'd be happy to have you
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back on the channel. Likewise, if any other analyst from ARK Invest is interested in an
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interview, slide on into my DMs on Twitter at ticker symbol you, and I'll make it happen.
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Another thing I'm really proud of is the Ticker Symbol YOU podcast. Every episode is a re-edited
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and digitally mastered audio version of these YouTube episodes. The Ticker Symbol YOU podcast
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is only about 4 months old and is already one of the Top 10 Tech News Podcasts on Apple
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Podcasts in Norway, Singapore, and Thailand, so a big thank you to the twelve people that
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listen to me on Apple in those countries. If you're interested, you can find the podcast
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on Spotify, Google Podcasts, and Stitcher as well. Now let's talk about the future.
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Here's what you can expect going forward as we enter the final quarter of 2021: as I mentioned
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earlier, I'm starting a 100,000 dollar portfolio when the channel hits 100,000 subscribers,
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which I expect to happen sometime in the next 3 months. Instead of comparing the Ticker
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Symbol YOU portfolio to the indexes, we're going to compare its performance to Cathie
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Wood and ARKK over a 5-year stretch, which is ARK Invest's time horizon… or however
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long it takes for me to admit defeat! I'll also be reorganizing my 4000 member discord
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community to focus more on the stock market and investing, not just technology platforms
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and innovation. That Discord community is another thing I'm really proud of, so if you're
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interested in joining that and helping me with this crazy idea, I'll leave a link to
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it in the description below. I strongly believe that almost nobody understands technology
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and exponential growth like Cathie Wood and ARK Invest's analysts, so no matter what the
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results are, I want to make it clear that the goal of this portfolio to provide a fun,
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interactive, and educational investment experience using my own money. To me, that's a great
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way to level up the channel that invests in you. If you're interested in seeing the moves
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in that portfolio as they happen instead of waiting for me to cover them in a video, consider
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joining the hundreds of people supporting the channel as Patrons on Patreon or channel
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members right here on YouTube. That's one of those new benefits for supporters I was
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just talking about. If not, that's totally cool, I'll talk about the portfolio at least
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once a month and recap the biggest changes, good or bad. Either way, thank you for investing
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some of your precious time with me each week and letting me talk about the channel every
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quarter. That really means a lot to me. In the next episodes of ARK Week, it's right
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back to business. I'll highlight the biggest trends and holdings changes I see in each
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of ARK Invest's individual funds. Then, I'll let the data and your feedback keep deciding
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what content comes next. After all, this is ticker symbol you. My name is Alex, reminding
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you that the best investment you can make… is in you.