- Short interest in Cathie Wood's ARK Innovation ETF is on the rise.
- Shares shorted jumped 195% in the past thirty days and 24% in the past week, according to data from S3 Partners.
- Wood isn't concerned by her fund's recent fall and is buying the dip in tech names.
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The number of shares sold short in Cathie Wood's ARK Innovation ETF (ARKK) has jumped 195% in the past 30 days, according to data from Ihor Dusaniwsky of S3 Partners.
Cathie Wood and her actively managed ETFs have been the face of the booming technology sector and the stock market's bull run over the past year, but now it appears some investors are losing faith.
The number of shares shorted in Wood's flagship fund, ARKK, jumped by 13.1 million over the last 30 days. And in the last week alone, shares shorted have soared by 3.8 million or 24%, according to S3 data.
Investors may be looking to take advantage of what could be a sustained fall in Cathie Wood's ARK Innovation ETF after the fund took the brunt of a tech sell-off over the past month.
Wood's fund has struggled as many investors look to rotate away from highly valued tech names and into financial, industrial, and energy sector plays amid the reopening of the US economy and rising interest rates.
The ETF is down over 22% in the past month despite a nearly 9% recovery on Tuesday. Year to date Wood's flagship ETF is down just over 4%.
ARKK has 10% of its $17.68 Billion in net assets in Tesla stock, which has hurt results of late amid a decline for the EV manufacturer. Shares of Tesla are down 24% in the past 30 days despite a nearly 15% recovery on Tuesday.
Due to the fall, ARKK short sellers are up $322 million in year-to-date mark-to-market profits in 2021, which includes a $117 million drop in mark-to-market losses on today's roughly 9% price move.
Still, some analysts and investors, including analyst Dan Ives at Wedbush, have argued the recent tech sell-off has created a "massive buying opportunity."
Cathie Wood sat down with CNBC on Monday to discuss her ETFs' poor performance in recent weeks and echoed Ives sentiments.
The fund manager, known as "money tree", said she isn't concerned with the losses and argued the "bull market is strengthening." Wood said she sees "great opportunities" in the market and will continue adding to her strongest conviction holdings.
True to her word, Wood's ETFs have added millions of shares of Palantir, Tesla, and other tech names throughout the fall.