Cathie Wood Keeps ‘Open Mind’ on China Shares After Dumping Them

(Bloomberg) -- Cathie Wood said valuations of Chinese stocks will likely remain depressed for a while, but she isn’t shutting the door on them.

“So is China now uninvestable?” the head of Ark Investment Management said on a webinar hosted by the firm Tuesday. “Well, I would say in any of the areas that we’re looking at right now, the multiple structure, the valuation structure of those companies is down and probably not going to come back very quickly, may even go down more.”

“But,” she said later in the webinar, “I’m sure we’re going to find some very interesting companies in the innovation space, and so we’re going to keep an open mind there.”

Wood dumped Chinese stocks in July as Beijing’s clampdown on sectors ranging from education to technology wiped out about $1 trillion off shares listed on the mainland, Hong Kong and the U.S. last month.

Her largest fund, the ARK Innovation ETF, had less than 0.18% of its $23 billion in assets invested in Chinese companies as of Aug. 9, compared with 8% in February, data compiled by Bloomberg show.

There are already signs investors were attempting to find a bottom. Chinese internet stocks rallied in Hong Kong on Tuesday after some brokers started to turn optimistic on the sector.

©2021 Bloomberg L.P.