Cathie Wood is a star stock picker and the founder, CEO, and CIO of ARK Invest, an asset manager that invests in disruptive innovation. Wood gained fame in 2020 when all six ARK ETFs registered returns greater than 100%.
With the market flattening out over the past month, Wood and her ARK Invest, which has more than $40bn in assets under management, have been busy buying stocks.
So, let take look at a couple of stocks that Wood has been buying and one that she has sold.
Twilio
Twilio (NASDAQ:TWLO) is an US company, providing programmable communication tools for the telecommunications industry using its web service APIs. It makes your smart phone apps smarter by allowing them to seamlessly connect with one another.
Like many other growth stocks, Twilio’s shares have fallen, down 77% over the past 12 months.
However, this belies some fairly positive performance data. In its last reported quarter, Twilio’s organic revenue rose 35%, above expectations. But net income for the quarter was -$221m. So there’s clearly some distance to go before this company becomes profitable.
In June, Scotiabank initiated coverage of Twilio at “outperform“. The brokerage set a target price of $215, implying 162% upside from today’s share price.
Wood bought more Twilio stock on Thursday.
Exact Sciences
Exact Sciences (NASDAQ:EXAS) is a molecular diagnostics company specialising in the detection of early stage cancers. There’s clearly huge potential for the company’s products, with cancer one of the biggest killers in the developed world.
The company received a boost last week when a new Medicare fee schedule was proposed. Previously, if individuals received a positive result with Exact Sciences’s Cologuard, they would have to pay for a follow-up colonoscopy. But under the new proposal, that fee is scrapped. Several analysts think this could boost the utility of Cologuard.
The stock is down a whopping 58% over the past 12 months. Whether the product will truly catch on is an issue for me.
Wood bought more Exact Sciences stock on Thursday.
CRISPR Therapeutics
Wood sold shares in CRISPR Therapeutics (NASDAQ:CRSP) on Wednesday. The stock is up 33% over the past month but remains down 34% over the past year.
The stock has been pretty volatile in recent months. The firm recently held an innovation day to showcase its entire drug pipeline. However, CRISPR’s kidney cancer trial data did not impress investors and the stock tanked.
However, it’s been gaining since then on the back of news that the firm will be able to commercialise the first ever CRISPR gene therapy, a functional cure for TDT and sickle cell disease, in the coming months.
While the company didn’t generate traditional sales in 2021, it generated plenty of revenue in research milestone agreements. In fact, it has a price-to-sales ratio of 5.8 for the trailing 12 months versus an industry average of 4.1.
What’s does this mean for me?
I predominately invest in FTSE stocks, but I keep an eye on Wood’s portfolio. CRISPR Therapeutics is a stock I had been looking to add to my portfolio, but I was put off by the early stage cancer data back in June.
I haven’t had much exposure to Exact Sciences or Twilio, but I’d be willing to add the latter to my portfolio.