By Samuel Indyk
Investing.com – ARK Invest’s Cathie Wood has said digital wallets and genomics are the next two biggest disruptive trends after electric vehicles.
Tesla advocate
Wood has been a vocal supporter of Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) and the electric vehicle maker makes up over 11.5% of her flagship ARK Innovation ETF (NYSE:ARKK). As Tesla shares rallied, Wood’s popularity grew and her funds were among the best performing globally in 2020.
2021 has been a different story as Tesla shares retreated from their record highs and ARK’s funds have pulled back.
Digital wallets
The next disruptive technologies Wood looks set to support are digital wallets and genomics.
“We’re very excited about digital wallets,” Wood said on CNBC. “We really think that these digital wallets and two-sided market places, merchants and consumers...are going to usurp a lot of the role the banks play today.”
The comments come ahead of the public listing of cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase on Wednesday. Names in the digital wallet space also include Square (NYSE:SQ) and PayPal (NASDAQ:PYPL). Square is the second largest holding in the ARK Innovation ETF with a weighting of around 7%.
ARK Genomic Revolution ETF
Wood’s ARK has a whole ETF dedicated to genomics, called the ARK Genomic Revolution ETF (NYSE:ARKG). Its largest holdings include Teladoc Health (NYSE:TDOC) (7.4% weighting), Exact Sciences (NASDAQ:EXAS) (4.9%), and Pacific Biosciences (NASDAQ:PACB) (4.9%).
“DNA sequencing is going to introduce science into healthcare decision making for the first time ,” Wood added. “We’re going to be able to cure diseases that we never thought it would be possible to cure, including cancer.”