Cathie Wood Talks Innovators And Disruptors With Yahoo's Jen Rogers

Cathie Wood is a big name in the investment world due to the tremendous success of ARK Investment Management. Wood is the founder and CEO of Ark, and her company's portfolios have been bringing in returns of more than 100%. In 2020, Ark had inflows of $30 billion and in January 2021, a return of $8 billion.

What Happened: On Tuesday, Wood, appeared on Yahoo Finance to highlight the electric vehicle and Bitcoin (BTC) portions of Ark's “Big Ideas 2021” presentation, released on Jan. 26. Wood said that Tesla Inc. TSLA will continue to be the leader in EVs in the U.S. and China, but also said she thinks “China might hold the secret to the next big winners.”

The Chinese EV makers Wood pointed to are Nio Inc-ADR NIO, Xpeng Inc. XPEV and BYD Company Limited BYDDF. But if she “had to give you which of the Chinese names we have the highest conviction in, it’s probably Baidu,” because the “government has deemed it the autonomous platform for China.” Baidu Inc BIDU recently announced plans to create an EV company. 

Related Link: 15 Big Ideas In 'Disruptive Innovation' According To Cathie Wood, Ark Funds

Wood also talked about the institutional behavior around Bitcoin and how large companies are starting to put their cash reserves into it. Wood does not believe $40,000 is the top in Bitcoin and pointed that with its approximate $600 billion market cap it is only half the size of Apple Inc. AAPL or Amazon.com Inc. AMZN but has a "much bigger idea than either of those two because it is the first global digital currency out there.”

Wood pointed to Square Inc. SQ placing 1% of its assets into Bitcoin, and Microstrategy MSTR putting all of its available cash into Bitcoin, but said the most surprising institution buying the cryptocurrency has been MassMutual. Wood said MassMutual is “very conservative and very regulated” and would have had to “jump through many more regulatory hurdles” to buy the $100 million of Bitcoin it has put into its account. Wood says this is “a seal of approval.”

What’s Next: Investors are always speculating about which companies will become the next "big idea" for Ark and are watching closely as ARK updates its portfolios.

(Photo: Cathie Wood, Ark Investments, YouTube)