Cathie Wood kicked off the new trading week with a couple of items to cross off her holiday shopping list. The CEO, co-founder, and primary portfolio builder at Ark Invest added to some of her existing stakes across her Ark family of exchange-traded funds.
Wood increased her stake in Baidu (BIDU 4.51%), WeRide (WRD 4.38%), and Tempus AI (TEM 1.49%) on Monday. Let's take a closer look.
Image source: Getty Images.
1. Baidu
Shares of Baidu rose 4% on Monday, after confirming that it's in the process of potentially spinning off its majority-owned Kunlunxin semiconductor business in Hong Kong as early as the first quarter of next year. Kunlunxin has been cranking out chips since 2017, including its first artificial intelligence (AI) chip -- Kunlun AI -- in 2018.
With China locked into a war of tariffs and trade restrictions with the U.S., the country has urged local players like Baidu to step up and fill the void. Investors have benefited from the opportunity. Baidu is up 55% this year, and it only owns a 59% stake in Kunlunxin.
Baidu recently laid out a five-year roadmap to ramp up its Kunlun AI chips to help fill the Nvidia (NVDA 0.33%) void, but the world's most valuable company may have other plans. The U.S. announced that Nvidia could start selling its H200 chip in China after the market close on Monday.
NASDAQ: BIDU
Key Data Points
Wood's purchase on Monday may initially seem to be a case of bad timing. Baidu stock gave back Monday's gains on the news, but don't dismiss Baidu's growth opportunity here. Nvidia's chip is more powerful than any homegrown AI alternative, but the tariffs that it will have to pay to move them into the world's second-largest economy will make an already expensive product even more costly.
It also takes two to tango, and the mercurial nature of this trade war is that what stands as the new normal today might not last for long. Along the way, Baidu continues to be at a surprisingly cheap valuation even after its market-thumping run this year.
China's leading search engine provider -- with several side bets on next-gen tech, including AI chips, cloud hosting, and autonomous driving -- is trading for just 16 times adjusted forward earnings.
NASDAQ: WRD
Key Data Points
2. WeRide
Speaking of Nvidia stock, WeRide is another Chinese company that at one point spiked higher this year as a result of Nvidia's situation. In this case, it was a more direct event, as in Nvidia becoming a minority shareholder in WeRide. The news was enough to send the self-driving car stock sharply higher, but that 81% single-day pop didn't last long.
WeRide stock has shed a third of its value this year. An analyst slashed its price target on the stock over the weekend, citing concerns about slowing monetization in China, due to roadblocks to robotaxi technology. Thankfully, WeRide isn't limited to just its home country. It has autonomous vehicle licenses in eight different countries.
NASDAQ: TEM
Key Data Points
3. Tempus AI
If you think Baidu investors are having a good year, Tempus AI stock has more than doubled in 2025. Its 128% year-to-date surge has been fueled by strong growth and being in the right place at the right time. Tempus AI develops AI-fueled applications for the healthcare industry.
Its core focus has been oncology and hereditary testing, but it's also been expanding its reach. This year alone it has made a couple of acquisitions. Revenue rose 85% in its latest quarter, and that's actually a slight deceleration from the 90% year-over-year top-line growth it posted three months earlier. The financial results have been padded by its recent acquisitions, but Tempus AI is still delivering healthy organic growth as well.
