By David Randall
NEW YORK (Reuters) – The sell-off in high-growth stocks since the beginning of the year does not signal the end to the tech rally that began during the coronavirus pandemic in 2020, said Ark Invest’s Cathie Wood, whose ARK Innovation ETF was the top-performing U.S. equity fund last year.
Wood, whose flagship fund suffered its largest outflows on record last week, said in a webinar Tuesday that she sees spiking commodity prices as a sign that businesses are double or triple ordering supplies as they try to restart their global supply lines.
Fears of inflation have weighed heavily on growth stocks since the start of the year and helped bolster value stocks, which tend to benefit from rising commodities and higher interest rates. The Russell 1000 Value index is up 16.3% for the year, while the Russell 1000 Growth is up 3.9% over the same time.
“The scramble is more today than what we’ve seen in any other cycle,” Wood said, predicting that “we will have a very serious correction in commodity prices” once the global economy fully reopens.
Deflation, rather than inflation, will likely be the dominant theme in global markets in the years ahead due to technological innovation, Wood said. Yields for the benchmark 10-year Treasury will likely stay within a range between 1.5% and 3%, she said, while oil prices are unlikely to go above $70 per barrel.
U.S. crude rose 0.5% to slightly more than $65 in midday trading Tuesday.
While the investor rotation into value stocks has been “powerful,” high-growth stocks remain attractive, Wood said.
“Many consider what has happened in the last 3 months to be the equivalent of the tech and telecom bust. We do not believe that this is the case in the least,” she said.
ARK Innovation rose 2 percent in afternoon trading Tuesday. The fund is down 14.7% since the start of the year and is down 31.5% over the last 3 months.
Investors pulled nearly $714 million out of ARK Invest in the week that ended May 5, the largest dollar amount on record and its largest decline in percentage terms since December, 2018, according to data from Refintiv Lipper.
Wood, however, remains bullish that growth stocks such as Tesla Inc will continue to outperform over the next 5 years despite their recent declines.
“If I loved it up there and it’s 35% less expensive it must be a steal,” she said.
(Reporting by David Randall; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama)
