ARK’S Wood sees coming slowdown in U.S. economy as oil prices spike

Oil prices near seven-year highs will likely weigh on the U.S. economy and push inflation pressures down over the next year, star stock picker Cathie Wood of ARK Invest said in a webinar on Tuesday.

Wood, who became a household name by betting on high-valuation, high-growth stocks that soared during the early stages of the pandemic, remains one of the few prominent fund managers who say that deflation, rather than inflation, will be a driving force in the U.S. economy and stock market over the next few years.

Concerns about inflation have weighed heavily on Wood’s portfolio of stocks as rising interest rate costs cut into the valuations investors appear willing to pay for companies.

Yet advances in technology will likely push productivity rates higher, outweighing any gains in wages, Wood said.

“We have a very strong point of view that productivity gains we will witness over the next five to 10 years will be astonishing. We think productivity will increase 5%-plus, and we won’t have an inflation problem,” she said.

Wood’s flagship $12 billion ARK Innovation Fund was down 0.9% in afternoon trading Tuesday. The fund has large positions in companies including Tesla Inc, Teladoc Health Inc , and Roku Inc.

The fund was down 23.4% for the year-to-date through Monday, putting its performance near the bottom of the 607 U.S. mid-cap growth funds tracked by Morningstar. The benchmark S&P 500 index was down 5.2% over the same time.

Investors pulled nearly $148 million from the ARK Innovation Fund for the year-to-date through Feb. 2, according to Lipper data.

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