ARKK continuing outperformance, but has it run too hot?

8 thg 10, 2020

ARK is unique in that it has multiple non-leveraged, actively-managed ETFs that have delivered strong outperformance. But in the past few months, that out-performance has gained steam. We've seen ETFs like PBW and TAN run up, but ARKW, ARKQ, ARKG, ARKF have all delivered strong performance vs. SPY. This chart shows that the "innovation and disruption" narrative is either true, or has been overbought. The divergence is extreme.

Sitting at 10%+ of the fund is TSLA, who recently dissolved their PR team, and had a roof fly off of a Model 3 on the drive home from the dealership. Valuations are stretched on most of the holdings. Research by Morgan Stanley and Schwab Equity Research have shown that stocks with very high beta and the highest forward P/E estimates perform worse than those with low-beta and lower forward P/E estimates.

From a technical side, any kind of mean-reversion for ARKK would be disastrous. While it is the most liquid of the ARKK funds, a breakdown in the mid-cap growth narrative could impact funds like these the most. PBW and TAN have already dealt with their reckoning, losing a great deal of their value in 2009. Are we seeing something similar happen today? Or are we seeing another parabolic move that will see additional follow-through, as we saw with TSLA back in January?