Top investor Cathie Wood bets inflation will be a factor in us economy

Cathie Wood, the founder and CEO of ARK Investment Management LLC, speaks at the Skybridge Capital SALT New York 2021 conference in New York City, U.S. September 13, 2021. REUTERS Brendan McDermid File Photo

NEW YORK, January 11, ARK Invest star stock picker Cathie Wood doubled down on her bet that deflation, rather than inflation, will be the largest factor in the U.S. economy in the year ahead, according to a webinar on Tuesday.

Wood, whose ARK Innovation ETF was the top performing U.S. equity fund tracked by Morningstar in 2020 before plummeted to among the worst performers of 2021, pushed back against the idea that companies in her portfolio, such as Zoom Video Communications Inc ZM.O and Teladoc Health Inc TDOC.N, were beneficiaries of the economic lock-ins at the beginning of the coronaviruses epidemic.

She said they are not stay-at- home stocks, they are stay connected stocks.

She said that Zoom should have stunning growth rates ahead, while Teladoc will become the backbone of the U.S. healthcare system.

Inflation will fall this year as supply chain bottlenecks lessen and companies will no longer feel the need to put in double or triple orders for goods, according to Wood. She said that technology will continue to push down prices of goods and services.

Wood said companies are learning how powerful technology can be on holding the line on costs.

The ARK InnovationETF is down 7.6% for the year to date, as rising interest rates have weighed down the sort of high-growth, high-valued companIEs in its portfolio.

The fund was up 3.2% in the afternoon.