How Amazon Helped Cathie Wood Make Her Name On Wall Street

Ark Investment Management Founder and CEO Cathie Wood joined Benzinga's "Raz Report" for an interview and shared how she got her start on Wall Street.

Start On Wall Street: Cathie Wood wanted to become a portfolio manager, so she had to become an analyst first. She started in economics with Jennison Associates in the early 1980s and spent 18 years with the firm before moving on to AllianceBernstein.

“When I started in the business I really had to scrap,” Wood told Benzinga.

She spent 12 years at AllianceBernstein before launching Ark in 2014.

“I had to find stocks that no one wanted,” she said.

Wood looked for stocks that fell through the crack. One such stock was Reuters, which was dual-listed in the U.S. and U.K. Due to Reuters being in several industries, no one wanted to cover it.

“I wanted it," Wood said. "I was thrilled.”

Related Link: Why Does Ark Investment Send A Daily Email On New Positions? Cathie Wood Explains

How Amazon Helped: One of Wood’s big early wins that got her attention was Amazon.com, Inc. AMZN.

“We were buying Amazon, it was $5 billion in market cap,” Wood said on the price of Amazon in 2002.

Wood said she had to announce trades every Monday morning and when Amazon was announced as an addition, you could have heard a pin drop in the room.

“The internet was considered a figment of Wall Street's imagination," she said, noting that no portfolio manager or analyst wanted to recommend internet stocks.

Wood said at the time of the Amazon stock purchase, she had three little kids and was doing shopping online. Amazon was one of the companies that was helping her everyday life.

See also: How to Buy Amazon Stock

Amazon went on to become a massive e-commerce company with a $1.5 trillion market cap and Wood was early in seeing how the company helped people that couldn’t rush out to retail stores to make purchases.

Watch the full interview in the video below: