ARKK - Ark Innovation ETF

[Read the Footnotes]

lol

You forgot to mention that they don't hire "traditional" financial analysts with "formal" accounting and finance training so they are not constrained by "fundamental" analysis.

Not an issue, they can teach them whatever they don't need to know. 

Check out that video i linked to some more and then we can have some real fun, although I'm worried we will need to take it to the politics sections since that is apparently the correct place to say anything offensive you want. They are basically so on trend that they need their own politics thread too.

Also be sure to check out what is going on or possibly NOT going on on the large video monitor mounted on the wall in the background. I've got two really funny observations about that.

[Read the Footnotes]

Two other nuggets just for fun.

1. Check out the video about halfway down the page linked below, but don't just watch it. Watch it two or three times minimum. If you're not laughing by the third time, you're not paying enough attention.
https://ark-invest.com/

you mean when she says the traditional financial world is very siloed and specialized while her firms is focused "only on disruptive innovations" and it seems she's copying Trump's hand gesture?

There's even better material than that. Give it a couple more watches and watch for different things, not just verbal content, but style, interactions, etc. I guarantee your third or fourth viewing will make a very different impression if you watch in a detached analytical way.

[Castanza]

It’s what you would expect if r/wallstreetbets hired a professional PR firm to handle marketing.

[JRM]

I was thinking about shorting with both hands, but I see they have an "open" layout concept in their office. I may need to transfer my 401k to ARK funds.

[BG2008]

I looked in to it a bit and almost started a thread on the topic. You may have noticed me making some jokes about them elsewhere on CoB&F.

This is all original thinking on my part, so I'm curious to get feedback.

JRM says "I don't think she has any clue what she's talking about." Well I too have questions. Here are a couple of examples.

She rather famously was a giant Tesla bull and gave interviews where she reassured investors and said it was IMPOSSIBLE for Tesla to go bankrupt. Literally a couple of weeks later Musk came out and said something LIKE "whew, that was a close one, we would have gone bankrupt in a couple of days if we didn't pull a rabbit out of a hat." I think Musk can be extremely optimistic and promotional, so why shouldn't I just take his word over hers on this matter? Sounds like she might not know much about cash burn, repayment schedules, etc.

Then back in the spring, she tweeted some stuff saying basically that COVID-19 was overblown and we should just not worry about it. So not only did that belief not age well, the one source that she used to back up her reasoning was someone with statistics background that wasn't that relevant and he was not a specialist in virology or epidemiology. In addition the resume had all sorts of red flags, which was quickly followed up by his former academic institution listed on his resume putting out a statement saying that he never taught there. At a minimum it seems like someone at ARK doesn't know how to read an academic resume, doesn't know how to read a scientific resume, doesn't know how to read a medical resume, or doesn't know the relevant fields of expertise. Of course, it could be they have no respect for expertise.

I found a bunch of other stuff, but I'll leave it at two examples that made me question whether anyone at the ARK knows finance or science, both of which should be relevant.

My biggest question about ARK is whether or not they are actually operating as a feedback mechanism in two different ways.

First, I am curious if they are either intentionally or subconsciously crowd sourcing their investment decisions rather than using some other basis. What I mean by that is that they are more involved with social media engagement with investors than any other organization I have ever seen. In their case it would be pretty easy to use your own media engagement numbers to understand what your investors like. So ARK could send out some tweets about individual stocks. Then they could look at which tweets stocks their investors engaged with the most and whatever stock that is, THAT is what they buy for the fund.

Second, with their current size, whatever they buy will get driven up in price so could the fund becom a "self-fulfilling double beauty pageant feedback loop"? (just made that term up especially for ARK and I'm kind of proud of it.

The problem I ran in to with going short or buying puts was that I, like BG2008, concluded that there were a few good positions in the fund or at least some positions I didn't think would be fun to bet against.


Two other nuggets just for fun.

1. Check out the video about halfway down the page linked below, but don't just watch it. Watch it two or three times minimum. If you're not laughing by the third time, you're not paying enough attention.
https://ark-invest.com/
2. The pitch marketing pitches are frighteningly well done. A couple of times I found myself watch her in interviews or whatever and thinking wow this sounds really exciting, I should get out my checkbook and then after a couple of seconds of reflection I'm asking myself what the heck was I just listening to? That makes no sense to me. Well done pitches, but not much connection to the earth under my feet in my opinion.

I'll bet you're the kind of person who claims that the Kardashians have no skill and is only famous for being famous

[BG2008]

I looked in to it a bit and almost started a thread on the topic. You may have noticed me making some jokes about them elsewhere on CoB&F.

This is all original thinking on my part, so I'm curious to get feedback.

JRM says "I don't think she has any clue what she's talking about." Well I too have questions. Here are a couple of examples.

She rather famously was a giant Tesla bull and gave interviews where she reassured investors and said it was IMPOSSIBLE for Tesla to go bankrupt. Literally a couple of weeks later Musk came out and said something LIKE "whew, that was a close one, we would have gone bankrupt in a couple of days if we didn't pull a rabbit out of a hat." I think Musk can be extremely optimistic and promotional, so why shouldn't I just take his word over hers on this matter? Sounds like she might not know much about cash burn, repayment schedules, etc.

Then back in the spring, she tweeted some stuff saying basically that COVID-19 was overblown and we should just not worry about it. So not only did that belief not age well, the one source that she used to back up her reasoning was someone with statistics background that wasn't that relevant and he was not a specialist in virology or epidemiology. In addition the resume had all sorts of red flags, which was quickly followed up by his former academic institution listed on his resume putting out a statement saying that he never taught there. At a minimum it seems like someone at ARK doesn't know how to read an academic resume, doesn't know how to read a scientific resume, doesn't know how to read a medical resume, or doesn't know the relevant fields of expertise. Of course, it could be they have no respect for expertise.

I found a bunch of other stuff, but I'll leave it at two examples that made me question whether anyone at the ARK knows finance or science, both of which should be relevant.

My biggest question about ARK is whether or not they are actually operating as a feedback mechanism in two different ways.

First, I am curious if they are either intentionally or subconsciously crowd sourcing their investment decisions rather than using some other basis. What I mean by that is that they are more involved with social media engagement with investors than any other organization I have ever seen. In their case it would be pretty easy to use your own media engagement numbers to understand what your investors like. So ARK could send out some tweets about individual stocks. Then they could look at which tweets stocks their investors engaged with the most and whatever stock that is, THAT is what they buy for the fund.

Second, with their current size, whatever they buy will get driven up in price so could the fund becom a "self-fulfilling double beauty pageant feedback loop"? (just made that term up especially for ARK and I'm kind of proud of it.

The problem I ran in to with going short or buying puts was that I, like BG2008, concluded that there were a few good positions in the fund or at least some positions I didn't think would be fun to bet against.


Two other nuggets just for fun.

1. Check out the video about halfway down the page linked below, but don't just watch it. Watch it two or three times minimum. If you're not laughing by the third time, you're not paying enough attention.
https://ark-invest.com/
2. The pitch marketing pitches are frighteningly well done. A couple of times I found myself watch her in interviews or whatever and thinking wow this sounds really exciting, I should get out my checkbook and then after a couple of seconds of reflection I'm asking myself what the heck was I just listening to? That makes no sense to me. Well done pitches, but not much connection to the earth under my feet in my opinion.

I'll bet you're the kind of person who claims that the Kardashians have no skill and is only famous for being famous

Read the Footnote, these are great observations.  That last comment was obviously tongue in cheek

[Gregmal]

I'll bet you're the kind of person who claims that the Kardashians have no skill and is only famous for being famous

Oh they definitely have some skills. Skills that half the population would certainly appreciate. Watch the video!

[Spekulatius]

I was thinking about shorting with both hands, but I see they have an "open" layout concept in their office. I may need to transfer my 401k to ARK funds.

Nobody wears masks in the office🤷🏻‍♂️🦠

[TREVNI]

Two other nuggets just for fun.

1. Check out the video about halfway down the page linked below, but don't just watch it. Watch it two or three times minimum. If you're not laughing by the third time, you're not paying enough attention.
https://ark-invest.com/

you mean when she says the traditional financial world is very siloed and specialized while her firms is focused "only on disruptive innovations" and it seems she's copying Trump's hand gesture?

There's even better material than that. Give it a couple more watches and watch for different things, not just verbal content, but style, interactions, etc. I guarantee your third or fourth viewing will make a very different impression if you watch in a detached analytical way.

I think what convinced me to get out my checkbook was the side angle camera shots and the guy writing on glass. If that doesn't do it for you, the close-up of the guy spinning a pen on his fingers is also evidence of superior analytical ability.

[MattR]

Well ARK hat a terrific run last year, but this is mostly due to the bull market and increased inflows. Sven Carlin made a video where he argues that since ARK mostly invested in small cap, each inflow would increase the stock price.

I am subscribed to their daily trade notification and have noticed that since their extreme inflows in November/December they started to invest into much bigger companies whereas before they were much smaller.

Personally while Cathie is skilled and I enjoy her outlook videos -  I think that over the long run they will under perform the market -   just like most innovation, future or whatever they call themselves funds do.