Is Ivana Delevska The New Cathie Wood? SPRX Performance Leaves ARKK In The Dust

As we celebrate International Women’s Day, it’s crucial to spotlight the remarkable achievements of women in finance. Among them stands Ivana Delevska, whose innovative strategies and consistent returns have drawn attention, leading some to compare her prowess to that of renowned fund manager Cathie Wood.

While Wood has been the financial media's darling for years after her early success brought billions under her direct management, a dismal 2022, an underperforming 2023, and a lifeless 2024, have shown cracks are beginning to form. While Wood remains an inspiration in her own right, could it be time to crown a new queen of the financial world?

ARKK Is Leaking

ARK Innovation ETF ARKK, Wood's flagship fund, has seen a massive outflow of assets after a less-than-stellar performance as of late. Since the beginning of 2024, ARKK has essentially traded flat while the market has boomed. The S&P 500 has surged nearly 9% so far this year, propelled by a hyper-bullish tech sector. More heavily weighted tech-focused funds are up even more; the iShares US Technology ETF IYW has risen over 13%.

This lack of value creation in a hot tech market – her supposed bread and butter – has led many investors to exit and look elsewhere. ARKK has lost over 11% of its value – nearly $1 billion – over the last two months.

A Worthy Successor?

Delevska, founder and CIO of Spear Invest, looks ready to take the helm. Delevska has made a name for herself, with stellar returns over the few years since the inception of her flagship fund, the Spear Alpha ETF SPRX. SPRX has outperformed ARKK – and that's putting it lightly. Since the fund started trading in August of 2021, it's skyrocketed 22.30%. For comparison, the S&P is up 16.38% over the same period, while Wood's ARKK has plunged nearly 59.03%. That's quite a mismatch.

As for 2024, while ARKK is flat, the S&P is up 9% and IYW is up 13%. SPRX is up almost 15%.

Key Differentiators

Several philosophical and strategic differences separate Delevska and Wood, differences that led Wood to dump Nvidia NVDA in January of 2023 and Delevska to double down; the stock is up more than 520% since.

SPRX is even more concentrated and actively managed than ARKK and is somewhat thematically agnostic; where Wood has separate funds focused on singular themes, Delevska is able to shift focus based on what she and her team see as most ripe for growth, like her current favorites: cybersecurity, semiconductors, and hardware. 

Delevska is focused on finding good value rather than sticking to some arbitrary theme, "the themes sometimes sound great, but for us, it's all about the price we are paying," said Delevska during a recent interview with Benzinga.

But at the core of what sets her and Wood apart is Delevska's insistence on what she calls "boots on the ground" research. "We are very much in the weeds and understand the fundamentals very well and understand cycles very well. So that’s of one of the core differentiators, that we do boots-on-the-ground fundamental research… if you go one level deeper. It’s a very different level of detail that we get into in terms of understanding products, understanding the value chain," she said.

What does that entail? Well, sometimes it means literally putting boots on the ground. "A lot of times I’ll go to customer events… talk to their customers, and see what their feedback is. And a lot of the decisions that we make are based on that research… If we learn something there that’s not particularly good, we would change our positioning."

Taking Notice

Delevska's success has won her many fans. Although SPRX is still small compared to ARKK, it is growing fast. Delevska's fund sits just shy of $80 million in AUM, with about $60 million of that added in the last 3 months.

The Wood rival is happy about the recent success and excited for the future. But as her fund grows, her focus won't change and she will remain steadfast in her hands-on approach. "My core focus is to manage the portfolio. That's what I like to do, to do this bottoms-up research and talk to companies," she said.

Image created with photos from Shutterstock and Spear Invest.