Cathie Wood Is a Historic Fund Manager with Viral Fame. That Doesn’t Make Her ARK ETFs Good Buys Now.

Investment managers used to be hard to find. We had Barron’s on Saturdays and the Wall Street Journal during the week. And for those with a technical analysis bent, we also had Investor’s Business Daily. 

Today, you can’t escape investing content even if you try. Not in the social media age, unless you “block” instead of “scroll.” 

That has helped to blur the lines between past accomplishments and name recognition. Among the most popular investment managers is Ark Invest founder Cathie Wood. She and her team have impressive backgrounds and an obvious knack for innovatively packaging modern market themes. 

They’ve done well at gathering assets. But the long-term record of their active ETFs is mixed at best. At this point in the market cycle, particularly for growth stocks, which are the focus of Wood’s flagship Ark Innovation ETF (ARKK), it might be getting late in the game. 

Let’s answer a fundamental question: How long has it been since the ARK ETFs made real money for their investors? We’ll start by looking at the whole roster, including the newest and smallest set, the “Diet” Buffer ETF series. 

I’ll focus from here on the five largest, ARKK, the Ark Genomic Revolution ETF (ARKG), the Ark Autonomous Tech & Robotics ETF (ARKQ), the Ark Next Generation Internet ETF (ARKW), and the Ark Space Exploration & Innovation ETF (ARKX). This chart shows those five from March 30, 2021 through now. 

Note that I skipped over including the Ark 21Shares Bitcoin ETF (ARKB), since that ETF is essentially a Bitcoin (BTCUSD) tracking instrument, like its many peers. I’m focused on the more innovative and active ETFs in ARK’s lineup.

This is a period covering nearly 5.5 years. And while the more siloed robotics and space-focused pair ARKQ and ARKX have produced returns between those of T-bills and the S&P 500 Index ($SPX), that return has all occurred since April 2025, which followed four years of net-nothing returns. 

“Net-nothing” is still prohibitively better than the other three. ARKK is the firm’s flagship ETF. And while it is now under $7 billion in assets, it is the No. 1 reason Cathie Wood is still a household name. 

Not because it is down 25% since March 2021. Because once upon a time, it pulled off a sixfold increase from the start of 2017 to the end of 2020. That’s a legendary run. 

And no doubt that’s still fresh in the minds of investors. Whether it is those looking for ARK to “do it again,” or simply long-term thinkers with the patience of Job (or Warren Buffett), Wall Street history is filled with famous names who were able to thrive on reputations built long ago. 

For ARK, the firm gets credit for continuing to innovate. However, even the few ETFs in its lineup that produced positive results since early 2021 have likely hit a wall. Space and robotics are all linked in part to the AI trade. And from what I see, the fanfare of that era is fading quickly. Whether that will impact the fandom of ARK is to be determined. 

But this is not really about ARK or any other investment firm. It is about how investors should learn to separate the headline-makers from the bottom line. 

In a bull market, everyone looks good. In a bear market, reality bites. 

Rob Isbitts is a semi-retired CIO, former fiduciary investment advisor, and Barchart columnist. Check out his other work at ETFYourself.com (featuring the Fresh Charts weekly trading post), and ROAR.PiTrade.com, helping investors to better-manage their own portfolios.