Cathie Wood Watch: Ark Next-Gen Internet Buys Cybersecurity, Sells Splunk
Investment star Cathie Wood, CEO of Ark Investment Management, bought into a couple of cybersecurity firms on behalf of Ark Next Generation Internet ETF. (ARKW) - Get ARK Next Generation Internet ETF Report
She bought nearly 60,000 shares of Crowdstrike (CRWD) - Get CrowdStrike Holdings, Inc. Class A Report and 49,500 shares of Okta (OKTA) - Get Okta, Inc. Class A Report.
Also for ARKW, she bought nearly 186,000 shares of UiPath, (PATH) - Get UiPath Inc Class A Report the provider of business-process-automation software, and sold 244,000 shares of Splunk, (SPLK) - Get Splunk Inc. Report the provider of a number of business-software solutions.
She continues to pursue her strategy of buying beaten-down technology stocks. In many cases, it’s stocks she already owns.
Ark exchange-traded funds bought shares of online video game platform Roblox (RBLX) - Get Roblox Corp. Class A Report, video-streaming service Roku (ROKU) - Get Roku, Inc. Class A Report and videoconference service Zoom Video Communications (ZM) - Get Zoom Video Communications, Inc. Class A Report.
Roku is the third biggest holding in Ark’s flagship Ark Innovation ETF (ARKK) - Get ARK Innovation ETF Report, Zoom is No. 4 and Roblox is No. 23.
Ark Innovation bought 135,730 shares of Roku Thursday, valued at $17.4 million at Thursday’s close. Ark funds bought 171,250 shares of Zoom, worth $19.4 million at Thursday’s close. And Ark Innovation purchased 506,738 shares of Roblox, worth $22.9 million at Thursday’s close.
Ark offered the following commentary about Roblox Feb. 19, four days after it reported fourth-quarter earnings. “Total bookings in the US and UK faced reopening headwinds and missed analyst expectations,” Ark wrote.
But, “Having paid $500 million to its young developer community and continuing to lower barriers to creation with Roblox Studio, Roblox should continue to increase its share of the developer and gamer communities.”
As for Roku, “The company reported fourth-quarter earnings with lower-than-expected 33% revenue growth and guidance for further deceleration to 25% for the first quarter,” Ark said last month.
“Management cited supply chain bottlenecks and inventory shortages at its TV original-equipment-manufacturer partners that have impacted sales of smart TVs.”
On the plus side: “Management noted that active accounts increased to more than 60 million, surpassing the number of video subscribers combined at all the cable companies in the U.S.,” Ark said.
“Although U.S. consumers spend 45% of their viewing hours on streaming TV today, advertising on streaming TV accounts for only 18% of total TV advertising budgets, a gap we expect to close. Roku is the leading TV operating system in the U.S. and is beginning to scale internationally.”
Gloss