Who is Cathie Wood? — Investment and Economic Evangelist Catherine Wood, CEO of ARK-Invest

Who is Cathie Wood? — Investment and Economic Evangelist Catherine Wood, CEO of ARK-Invest

Recently you could read a lot about Cathie Wood and her prediction about Tesla. I was also reading all this and did some research, put it together and you can find therefore a short bio of Catherine Wood here on my TheBankerBlog.com.

Cathie Wood Bio – Today

Catherine Wood also famously known as Cathie Wood is CEO & CIO of the ARK-Invest. Cathie is one of the most influential people in the bull market and also secured number 80 of the American’s Richest Self-Made Women in Forbes. She is unlike any other star stock picker, any of the research she makes at Ark is freely available online and that is what makes her different from others.

Cathie Wood’s assessment predictions of the stock market have been criticized in the past, but every time her estimates were accurate and astounded by other influential investors.

Where Cathie Wood started

When Cathie was an economics and finance student at the University of Southern California from 1976 to 1981, started her career as Assistant Economist at Capital Group, a Los Angeles fund giant, where she observed as market interest rates approached 20% was crushing the market and the economy.

After her graduation, she was hired by Jennison Associates LLC as an Economist. Right after joining she made the first call as that exposed her potential to the superiors about her concerns about the ongoing increased interest rates and their impact on the market. Her proposal was against the consensus but the solution she proposed when implemented, thrived on the company. Cathie found out that she can excel by starting a career that can help her in researching individual companies. So, Cathie decided to quit her job but Cathie’s mentor made her return and moved her to equity research, where she discovered that these nascent companies will unfold the prospects for the new communication revolution and a lot of investment opportunities at this stage.

Cathie Wood moved to New York in 2001, where she was appointed as a CIO of AllianceBernstein for thematic research strategies and portfolio management.

During the financial crises of 2008, many active equity managers underperformed the S&P 500. Cathie decided to have a fresh approach. After 4 years, she proposed to AllianceBernstein that they should integrate portfolios of actively managed innovative companies to ETF structure, but her idea got no ears.

The launch of Active Research Knowledge

In 2014, she launched ARK -Active Research Knowledge with a vision to share knowledge to get a better and deeper understanding of what they are researching and want to invest. Like every new startup, ARK faced a tough time in starting two years. At that time, Cathie invested more in the ARK by selling minor stakes and partnered with two larger firms American Beacon and Japan’s Nikko Asset Management. After this major step, ARK flourished by leaps and bounds. In 2017, ARK’s assets bulled up tenfold. She built up ARK based on bold predictions, an online presence via Twitter, and free quality research that she shares on the internet.

Cathie Wood’s method

While building portfolios, Cathie Wood pinpoints all the interruptions or nuisances and then takes a top-down approach. She also prefers crowdsourcing for a wider perspective. After going through all these processes, Cathie evaluates a business. Wood’s rule of thumb denies accepting anything that has the potential to grow less than 15% annually for the next 5 years.

Awards

Cathie has earned many honoring awards during this journey. She was a featured speaker at the World Economic Forum (WEF) of 2016 and 2017, the World Strategic Forum,  Sohn Hearts, and Minds Investment Leader Conference in Australia,  Global Summit if 2019, and so on. Cathie was among the Bloomberg 50 list of people across finance, business, technology, science, politics, and entertainment who have influenced global businesses in 2018.

Cathie Wood’s predictions on tech and Tesla

Right after the starting of the pandemic, she has predicted that this year is for the tech companies. Due to the social distancing to counter COVID-19, the tech companies would have a greater edge over the others and other businesses will be depending on these fast-growing hi-tech companies.

Likewise, she did a prediction about Tesla, which has stunned the investors when she had evaluated it to be a $1.4 trillion company in 4 years presuming share price to cross 6 thousand dollars.

This has started giving the fruit this year when they have increased the market share 10-folds and this was quite surprising for many as there was a flood of criticism from many active equity managers. This had given more power to Ark-Invest as most of the stock players do have much of a sound grip over the new hi-tech companies, as they don’t understand the operation and potential of tech companies. Many who have predicted so far about Tesla have predicted on a single domain. For example, some have predicted that Tesla batteries will go bullish and some have taken Tesla for electric cars only, in perspective to the growing importance of electric cars worldwide and lower rates of Tesla to secure the market. On the other hand, Cathie Wood, who has great expertise in the tech companies niche estimated it based on all the aspects Tesla is currently investing in. She seems to understand the operation and science of the emerging industries of Artificial intelligence, cryptocurrency, streaming media, 3D printing, biotech R&D efficiency, quantum computing power, and so on. She works with a savvy young team having expertise in the domains like computer engineering and molecular biology for unlocking new technological advancement for seeking the real potential in the market.

The impacts

Thousands of companies are now looking towards Cathie Wood’s Ark-Invest to expand their business and proactively following her on Twitter and availing opportunity by connecting with her every Friday via Zoom to seek more knowledge from her and start working on her advice to compete in this hi-fi technological arena. Businesses around the world have been transforming their playbooks based on innovations by the introduction of advanced technologies like artificial intelligence, cloud & quantum computing, cryptocurrencies, 3D printing, alternative energies, molecular biotechnologies, and so on. The ongoing pandemic has put us all in the bull market of this transformation. Based on Cathie’s prediction post-pandemic will quintuple the speed of growth of all the industries who have transformed their workbooks accordingly, and many tech companies will emerge by superseding other companies and even investment firms who are still following the conventional system for estimations.

I think I was able to give you some information about this fascinating personality Cathie Wood, here on TheBankerBlog.com.