If you’ve never heard the name, then you may have been hiding under the proverbial “Wall Street rock” as the name Cathie Woods seemed to be the Genius of wall street when her ARK ETF fund went ballistic in 2020.  The 66-year-old investor had attracted millions of devoted followers with a unique vision that she frequently laid out in YouTube videos and tweets: that huge technological advances are reshaping the world, and Wall Street is too timid to take advantage of those seismic shifts. In 2020, that vision paid off big time. Her flagship fund, called the ARK Innovation ETF, returned an astonishing 150% – well above the S&P 500’s 16% return, when lockdowns led to a surge in many of tech companies Wood had bet on, including Zoom Video Communications and Roku.

Since then, her fund is a shadow of its former glory, but you would be a fool to count her out of the game. Woods has made her bones by looking for under valued companies with high upside and potential. Higher risk= Higher reward as she feels that by looking at the market through her particular lens and style of trading she can out earn her peers as they stick to more traditional “Safer investments”. In her latest YouTube videos, Wood is characteristically upbeat as she encourages her followers to stay focused. Time will tell if she is as good as advertised and we will continue to hear the name Cathie Woods.