There's no rest for Cathie Wood during a holiday-abridged trading week. The widely followed founder, CEO, and chief investment officer of Ark Invest aggressively added to her exchange-traded funds' portfolios on Wednesday after the markets reopened from their observance of Independence Day.
Wood added to her positions in nearly a dozen different stocks on Wednesday, but among her more interesting purchases were Roku (ROKU -10.29%), Nextdoor (KIND 1.00%), and Meta Platforms (META 0.43%).
Roku
Roku may be a four-letter word to investors who bought the stock when it was approaching $500 two summers ago, but those who picked up the shares more recently have good reason to be giddy about it. The stock has soared by 60% in 2023, despite a dramatic slowdown in its once-torrid growth.
Roku rattled off four straight years of at least 45% top-line growth before that growth rate slowed to 13% in 2022. Roku's revenue rose just 1% in its latest quarter. It also has delivered red ink on the bottom line for five consecutive reports.
Image source: Getty Images.
The view is kinder when we get to the underlying business. Roku had a record 71.6 million active accounts at the end of the first quarter, a 17% year-over-year gain. And streaming hours through Roku's operating system have risen by an even greater 20% over the past year, showing that folks are only streaming more these days.
A slide in connected TV ad revenue was the culprit behind Roku's revenue growth slowdown, but there are signs that things are getting better on that front. Management has also recently said that it's serious about controlling costs and prioritizing expenditures based on their near-term returns on investment. Though it competes against the titans of consumer tech, Roku is the undisputed top dog in its niche. It's a leader among streaming service stocks, and the shares have rebounded after back-to-back years of brutal declines. And it's the fourth-largest position overall across Ark Invest's ETFs.
Nextdoor
One of the smallest companies -- by enterprise value -- on Wood's radar is Nextdoor, the company behind the hyperlocal discussion boards that aim to get neighbors communicating with one another. From missing pets to people seeking service pro referrals, there are some pretty lively exchanges on the site. Its community is growing lately, even if the top line isn't following suit.
In the first quarter, Nextdoor served 42.4 million weekly active users, up 16% year over year. That was also a healthy bump from the 40 million weekly active users on the platform just three months earlier. However, its revenue declined by 2% year over year to $49.8 million, and its net loss widened slightly. The financial retreat isn't a surprise. Nextdoor is a free ad-supported platform, and marketers were paring back on spending for leads when the economy seemed wobbly earlier this year.
Despite the weak monetization -- revenue per active user was just over a buck in the quarter -- the good news here is that trends are improving. Revenue declined by 10% in 2022's fourth quarter as its audience rose by just 11%. Nextdoor also has more than $500 million in net cash on its balance sheet, which, with its $1.2 billion market cap, gives it a reasonable $709 million in enterprise value. The stock is up a hearty 57% so far in 2023, but its enterprise value has nearly tripled.
Meta Platforms
Roku's 60% climb and Nextdoor's 57% ascent this year are both impressive, but Meta wins the comeback kid prize for 2023. The social media giant's stock has soared by 145% this year as its revenues have returned to growth after declining last year.
Meta's reach is huge. Its family of apps, which includes Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp, attracts a total of 3.81 billion monthly active users. The company is making waves this week with the launch of Threads, a microblogging platform that hopes to take advantage of Twitter's recent rockiness. Meta stock has a volatile history, but Wood is making the most of its current rally.
