Cathie Wood fans pull billions from her flagship fund

The loyalty of Cathie Wood's legion of fans may be waning as the new year's bloodbath in speculative technology stocks hands the star money manager a miserable start to 2022.

The latest data shows that the biggest outflow since March was pulled by investors of US $352 million from Wood's flagship ARK InnovationETF ticker ARKK on Wednesday. The withdrawals came after ARKK languishes at the lowest level in about 18 months, having dropped more than 15 per cent since the start of the year. We apologize, but this video didn't load.

Here you can see other videos from our team. While the flow is small compared to ARK Investment Management assets — its nine ETFs still boast about $25 billion — it marks the beginning of a potential turning point for an investor base that until now has barely wavered in its support for Wood and the firm she founded in 2014. The fund lost over US $300 million last time it traded 44 per cent more than the outflow of ARKK was its third-biggest on record, the last time it was trading 44 per cent higher. Bausch Lomb files to go public in the U.S. and Canada, discloses revenue jump.

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Market conditions have been turning more hostile to the disruptive tech companies beloved by Wood. Rampant inflation has spurred a hawkish turn by the Federal Reserve, which will end the pandemic-era stimulus and the ultra-low yields that helped pump up equity valuations. The investors are pulling back from the speculative bets and growth firms whose profit potential lies in the future - exactly the kind of stocks favoured by ARK. Her eight other U.S. listed exchange-traded funds lost nearly $50 million on Wednesday. The flow data arrives with a one day lag because of the settlement schedule for the products.