ARK Invest’s Cathie Wood Warns ‘Valuation Reset’ Coming, Says Firm Plans To Capitalize on Wave of Fear

ARK Invest’s Cathie Wood believes the markets could be headed for a major pullback.

In a new interview on CNBC’s Halftime Report, the founder and CEO of the global asset management firm explains what could trigger a seismic stock market correction.

“I do believe if rates were to take a sharp turn up, we would see a valuation reset and our portfolios would be prime candidates for that valuation reset.

One of the things that I found interesting over the last really 20 years is that the S&P’s P/E (price to earnings) ratio tends to peak out in the 20 to 25 times range of forward earnings and I think the reason for that is most portfolio managers and maybe quantitative researchers are looking at normalized nominal GDP growth in the 4% to 5% range, which is where long-term interest rates should be normalized. 

If and when the markets retreat, the early Bitcoin and Tesla investor says her firm plans to buy more of their top positions.

We actually think normalized GDP growth is probably closer to 3[%], that’s where long-term interest rates should stabilize. If you think of 20 to 25 times, that’s one over 4% to 5% growth, so it’s the inverse of the growth rate, the nominal GDP growth and that’s where it seems to be peaking out. We think there’s actually, longer term,…there will be a valuation reset. There will be fear. I’m sure and we will use it to our benefit, concentrating our portfolio to our highest conviction names.”

Wood also shares ARK’s strategies on how it plans to take advantage of a potential pullback in the markets. 

“What we will do during a correction, especially a severe correction like the Coronavirus crisis presented, we will sell names which are creating losses now because again we’ve bought them, we’ve diversified and bought them more recently. Sell those names creating losses to buy our highest conviction names.”

Part of ARK’s strategy is betting on big biotech firms such as Regeneron, Novartis, and Takeda. Wood says these companies are deep value names that invest in new technologies and new ways of doing things. 

“These companies, the ones we are choosing, are able to use the convergence of technologies that is taking place today in the genomic revolution: DNA sequencing, artificial intelligence and gene therapies…

We’re using them as cash-like instruments in some way because we will move back into our pure-play names if we get into a severe correction, but we also see the investment merit in these names, they’re just not pure-play names. We use corrections toggling back and forth.”

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