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Ark Invest’s Cathie Wood said digital wallets and genomics are the next two biggest disruptive trends after Tesla and electric vehicles.
“We’re very excited about digital wallets,” Wood said on CNBC’s “The News with Shepard Smith” on Tuesday. “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.”
Wood — CIO and CEO of Ark Investment Management — has made a name for herself by investing in “disruptive innovation” stocks. Wood’s flagship fund, ARK Innovation, has seen more than $16.7 billion flood into the fund in the past year, according to FactSet.
Wood has big bets on names like Square and PayPal, which dominate the digital wallet space. Square is the second largest holding in Ark Innovation, representing more than 7% of the ETF.
In China, Wood said WeChat Pay and AliPay are the major players.
“It’s going digital, its going mobile. A little bank branch in you’re pocket,” said Wood. “We’re going to have all kinds of financial services available through them, including loans, debit cards, credit cards, stock buying, bitcoin buying.”
Elsewhere, Wood said the genomics space is also set to hit escape velocity.
“DNA sequencing is going to introduce science into healthcare decision making for the first time,” said Wood. “We can honestly say that until now more than half of all healthcare decisions were in some part made through guesses or experiences. Now we’re going to have the data.”
ARK’s Genomics ETF has big bets on Exact Sciences, which makes up nearly 5% of the ETF, and Invitae. CRISPR Therapeutics is another major holding in the ETF.
“We’re going to be able to cure diseases that we never thought it would be possible to cure, including cancer,” said Wood.
Shares of ARK Innovation are up 2.5% this year and shares of ARK Genomic Revolution are up less than 1% in 2021.
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