Ark Invest’s Cathie Wood unveiled her highest conviction stock picks for 2024 as she winds down a banner year with her flagship fund soaring 70%. The innovation investor said her biotech darling CRISPR Therapeutics in the multiomics space has the potential to be her top performer next year. Multiomics involves using biological data from a range of techniques, including genomics and proteomics. “This is life-changing innovation,” Wood said on CNBC’s ” The Exchange. ” “The multiomics space has been hurt the most during the past few years by being in a cash burn situation. It’s very early technology generally … it has been the most disadvantaged and probably inefficiently priced of all of our strategies.” Wood noted that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration recently approved the first gene-editing therapy developed and manufactured by CRISPR Therapeutics and Vertex Pharmaceuticals , which can treat patients with severe sickle cell disease. CRISPR is Ark Innovation ETF ‘s ninth-biggest holding, with a near 4% weighting. The biotech stock has rallied about 57% this year. Her flagship fund is up 70% this year after a 31% rally in November alone, its strongest month ever since its founding in 2014. Her holdings of innovative technology stocks staged a dramatic comeback at the back end of 2023 amid declining Treasury yields that further boosted growth stocks. Wood also named Coinbase as one of the stocks she’s particularly bullish on. The cryptocurrency exchange has become ARKK’s largest holding, accounting for almost 11% of the fund, after soaring almost 400% in 2023. The widely followed investor said she still has “a very high degree of conviction” in Tesla even though she took profits along the way this year. Wood added that she used the proceeds from trimming Tesla to add to her stakes in UiPath , Zoom , Roku , Block and Roblox , which she favors for next year.
