ARK's Wood dumps hundreds of millions in stocks, then snaps up Tesla three days later

Cathie Wood sparked jokes that she might be "preparing for retirement" after embarking on a massive stock sell-off — only to turn around days later and resume aggressive buying.

According to Investing.com, ARK Investment Management disclosed in its daily trading log on June 15 that it had sold large quantities of technology and growth stocks across its major ETF portfolios.

The largest sale was in Roku. ARK disposed of 665,136 Roku shares through its ARKK ETF, with the transaction valued at approximately $95.55 million (130 billion won). The move followed an additional sale of roughly 99,000 Roku shares on the previous trading day.

Chipmaker AMD was also among the major sell-offs. ARK sold 141,408 AMD shares across its ARKK, ARKQ and ARKX ETFs, raising about $72.34 million. The firm had already sold 80,536 AMD shares the week before.

ARK also continued trimming its position in aerospace company Rocket Lab, selling 171,176 shares through its ARKQ and ARKX ETFs — a follow-up to the 50,746 shares it offloaded on the prior trading day.

In addition, ARK sold 44,488 Tesla shares worth about $18.08 million, divested 46,783 Amazon shares through the ARKK ETF for roughly $11.16 million, and sold 66,259 Palantir shares valued at approximately $8.48 million.

The flurry of sales prompted speculation that Wood was overhauling her investment strategy by clearing out technology stocks that had recently surged. Some investors joked that she might be "getting ready to retire."

But trading disclosures published just three days later told a different story. On June 18, ARK bought 54,815 Tesla shares worth about $21.73 million. The firm also purchased 223,690 shares of data cloud company Snowflake for $52.46 million.

ARK also expanded its biotech exposure, picking up 8,487 shares of Eli Lilly worth about $9.44 million, along with 15,435 shares of Generate Biomedicines and 3,015 shares of Alama Biosciences.

Investment industry observers say the trades reflect Wood's longstanding strategy of cycling between short-term profit-taking and portfolio rebalancing. In practice, ARK has frequently sold portions of positions that grew too large, only to buy back into them shortly after.

Wood rose to prominence on Wall Street after her flagship ARK Innovation ETF posted a 153 percent annual return in 2020. Since then, however, a prolonged correction in technology stocks has weighed on performance, and the fund has struggled in recent years.

According to investment research firm Morningstar, the ETF's average annual return over the five years through June 12 stood at minus 8.06 percent, compared with 11.84 percent for the S&P 500 over the same period.