Financial Services

Money manager: We sold Apple in our 'best ideas' ETF to buy Netflix and others on a fire sale


Catherine Wood, a money manager specializing in technology stocks, told CNBC on Thursday her investment firm sold shares of Apple in its “best ideas” fund to buy tech names that suffered much more in the October plunge.

“We think the sell-off was overdone” in the likes of Netflix, Amazon, Nvidia, and Illumina, all of which each saw double digit losses last month, Wood said on “Squawk Box.”

ARK made the Apple rotation in its Innovation ETF (ARKK), because the iPhone maker was one of the few tech firms to weather the horrible October by only dropping 3 percent, said the founder and CEO of ARK Invest.

Wood said she used the Apple proceeds to load up Netflix, Amazon and others at what she considered sale prices. (However, ARK still holds Apple shares in some of its other actively managed exchange traded funds.)

The ARK Innovation ETF lost nearly 10 percent in the October tumult compared to declines of around 9 percent and 7 percent, respectively, for the Nasdaq and S&P 500.

But so far this year, the ARKK was still up 15 percent, dramatically outperforming the Nasdaq and S&P 500, which are up 1.4 percent and nearly 6 percent, respectively, in 2018.

“We’re very focused on ‘disruptive innovation’ in general,” explained Wood. She said she still considers Apple an innovator, but sees a bumpy road for the company ahead of an antitrust case in the Supreme Court later this month.

Back in 2011, Apple was accused of acting as a monopoly taking 30 percent commission on iPhone apps, a practice that was blamed for consumers paying higher prices than they should.

“This will be the first time in a while that Apple is in the regulatory or legal spotlight,” Wood argued.

Wood thinks Apple will be strong in the long run, but said the major October hit to other tech stocks has brought “some interesting valuation.”



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