US investor Cathie Wood’s Ark buys Alibaba shares for first time in 4 years

Wood’s Ark Fintech Innovation exchange-traded fund (ETF) bought US$8.18 million of Alibaba’s American depositary receipts (ADRs) on Monday, and her Ark Next Generation Internet ETF made a US$8.1 million investment in the securities on the same day, according to holdings reports by the two funds. Wood is the founder of New York-based Ark Investment Management.

Alibaba’s Hong Kong-listed shares gained 6.4 per cent to HK$169.60 on Wednesday morning, heading for the highest close since October 26, 2021, as trading remained open in the city despite the strongest typhoon since 2018. The ADRs dropped 0.7 per cent to US$163.08 in New York on Tuesday, trading near a four-year high. Eight of Alibaba’s Hong Kong shares can be converted into an ADR. Alibaba owns the South China Morning Post.

Wood’s re-entry into Alibaba validates the argument by global investment banks including Goldman Sachs that foreign interest in Chinese stocks has been recovering across the board after years of retreats amid a regulatory crackdown on the tech sector and an economic slowdown. A benchmark of China’s yuan-denominated stocks rose to a decade high last month, and Chinese tech stocks trading in Hong Kong have been on a roll amid Beijing’s determination to reverse slowing growth and ramp up tech innovation.

Wood, known for her prowess in stock picks, particularly in the tech sector, first invested in Alibaba in 2014, shortly after it began trading in the US. No investment records could be found after September 2021, when China’s large tech companies were thrust into a government effort to curb the sector’s unfettered expansion.

The company aimed to build its cloud unit into “the world’s leading full-stack AI service provider” from computing power to models, said Wu, who is also the chairman of Alibaba Cloud, at the Apsara Conference in Hangzhou, in China’s eastern Zhejiang province.