Cathie Wood's Ark Innovation Fund Returned 17% Over the Past Year. Is It Still a Buy After Years of Underperformance?
The Ark Innovation ETF, Cathie Wood's flagship fund, is posting solid returns, but it has some work to do to beat the broader market.
Overview
Being an active equity fund manager sounds like a glamorous job. It also usually pays well.
That's reasonable because it's hard work. In the domestic large-cap equity arena, the S&P 500 (SNPINDEX: ^GSPC) is the rock against which the surf (active fund managers) crashes. It's a stone-cold fact. Last year, 79% of all active large-cap U.S. equity funds failed to beat the S&P 500. That's far worse than the 65% failure rate in 2024, and 2025 was the fourth-worst year for large-cap managers in the study's 25-year history.
Details
So it's not altogether surprising that over the past year, the Ark Innovation ETF (NYSEMKT: ARKK), Cathie Wood's largest and most widely followed exchange-traded fund (ETF), is trailing the S&P 500 (up 18.4%). However, the ARKK ETF still has fans among growth-inclined investors, so it's worth examining if the fund merits a "buy" label today.
Source
Originally published at www.fool.com.