By Mackenzie Tatananni

Cathie Wood's ARK Invest doubled down on Big Tech this week, following through on its strategy of buying high-conviction names at any price.

Even though first-quarter earnings pushed shares higher, ARK bought Alphabet across three of its actively managed funds. The ARK Innovation exchange-traded fund (ticker: ARKK) snapped up 43,953 Class C shares on Thursday. As of Friday, ARKK held 250,688 Alphabet shares valued at roughly $95.7 million, or 1.48% of the portfolio by weight.

The ARK Autonomous Technology & Robotics ETF $(ARKQ)$ purchased 28,180 Alphabet shares, while the ARK Space & Defense Innovation ETF $(ARKX)$ added 11,996 shares. Alphabet stock comprises a larger portion of each of those funds, at 4.63% and 4.04%, respectively.

ARK Invest also bought the dip in shares of Meta Platforms after the parent company of Facebook shared its lofty capex plans. ARKK added 26,753 shares, the ARK Next Generation Internet ETF added 13,653 shares, and the ARK Blockchain & Fintech Innovation ETF added 6,795 shares. Meta comprises a relatively smaller part of those portfolios, ranging from 0.6% for ARKK to more than 2% for the others.

Also on Thursday, ARK Invest sold a combined 172,305 shares of Advanced Micro Devices across each of the five funds.

As of Thursday's close, more than half of the aforementioned funds had a negative annualized total return for the past five years. The biggest loser was the flagship ARKK fund, down 8.73% over the past five years. ARKQ and ARKX fared notably better, rising 9.25% and 9.89%, respectively, although their returns lagged behind the market. Both the S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite returned more than 13% over the same time period.

However, over the past three years, all five of ARK's actively managed funds have outperformed both indexes.

Inside Scoop is a regular Barron's feature covering stock transactions by corporate executives and board members -- so-called insiders -- as well as large shareholders, politicians, and other prominent figures. Due to their insider status, these investors are required to disclose stock trades with the Securities and Exchange Commission or other regulatory groups.

Write to Mackenzie Tatananni at mackenzie.tatananni@barrons.com

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May 01, 2026 15:44 ET (19:44 GMT)

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