Back-to-school supplies and updates to your autumn wardrobe are popular things on people's shopping lists these days. Noted investor and Ark Invest CEO Cathie Wood, meanwhile, has been scooping up shares of growth stocks for her various ARK exchange-traded funds (ETFs).
While I can't say that I agree with all of Wood's stock purchases over the past few months, there are some stocks that her funds have snatched up that would seem to fit well in other growth investors' portfolios. They include Ginkgo Bioworks (DNA 6.08%), Monday.com (MNDY 0.18%), and Trimble (TRMB -1.08%). Let's find out a bit more about these three Cathie Wood stocks that are worth more consideration.
1. Ginkgo Bioworks
A leader in the field of synthetic biology, or synbio, Ginkgo Bioworks specializes in providing its customers with improved molecules. Essentially, the company acts like an architect. Customers -- from a variety of industries, including food, pharmaceuticals, and cosmetics -- inform Ginkgo of their needs, and Ginkgo designs the blueprints for new and improved microbes. Often, Ginkgo will earn royalties or equity interests as a result of these partnerships, providing the company with good foresight into future cash flows.
Like many growth stocks this year, shares of Ginkgo have fallen steeply -- about 68.7% -- as investors shy away from investments that represent higher degrees of risk. However, the stock's plunge is not reflective of something inherently wrong with the company. This is something with which Wood seems to be familiar. Throughout August, the ARK Innovation ETF has purchased more than 7.34 million shares of Ginkgo Bioworks.
The company doesn't project profitability on an adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization (EBITDA) basis until 2025. In the meantime, though, investors can monitor the company's ability to launch new programs -- 60 are forecasted in 2022 -- as a positive sign that the company's offerings are in consistently high demand.
2. Monday.com
Also appearing on Wood's shopping list is the open platform stock Monday.com. The ARK Next Generation Internet ETF has been steadily increasing its position in Monday.com throughout 2022, adding 164,500 shares in February through May and 30,075 shares, most recently, in June.
The advantage of Monday.com's platform is that it allows customers to develop a customizable workflow experience -- selecting from the different apps available on its platform -- without the need for complex coding or adherence to a nonflexible infrastructure. Simply put, Monday.com's platform makes it easier for customers to work online. And with our lives becoming increasingly dependent on our ability to manage things online, Monday.com's ability to provide an easier solution is something that is highly attractive.
Monday.com has excelled at growing revenue over the past three years: Sales have soared at a compound annual growth rate of 99% from 2019 to 2021. The company recently announced a strong second-quarter 2022 performance, and management is bullish on the coming year regarding free cash flow generation.
On the company's Q2 2022 conference call, Eliran Glazer, the company's CFO, said that management expects "to see a shift toward breakeven or some free cash flow positive" in the second half of 2023.
3. Trimble
Occupying an increasingly larger position in two ETFs this summer, Trimble is a stock that first made an appearance in an ARK ETF in September 2020. Wood most recently picked up shares of Trimble in July, when the ARK Space Exploration & Innovation ETF picked up 25,073 shares, and the ARK Autonomous Technology & Robotics ETF added 93,392 shares.
Trimble is a leader in positioning systems. On both local and global scales, Trimble helps a diverse range of customers from industries including agriculture, construction, and transportation. With the data it collects from its positioning solutions, Trimble is also able to offer customers sophisticated modeling, analysis, and autonomous technology solutions.
Customers need to have accurate positioning data that are subsequently converted into modeling solutions and analytics, which is hardly something that will wane in the coming years. Instead, Trimble's offerings will likely grow in demand as customers' positioning and data needs become more sophisticated. The high interest in Trimble's offerings, in fact, is already recognizable in the company's substantial backlog of approximately $1.6 billion as of the end of Q2 2022.
A last look at Cathie Wood's shopping list
On balance, growth investors are more comfortable taking on risk in their investments, but that's not to say that all growth stocks represent the same risk. Trimble, for example, has a long runway of growth ahead of it, yet the company already generates positive free cash flow, mitigating the amount of risk. For investors looking to take on more risk in pursuit of greater rewards, conversely, Ginkgo Bioworks and Monday.com are better options.
