We recently compiled a list of the ARK Invest Stock Portfolio: Top 10 Stock Picks for 2024. In this article, we are going to take a look at where UiPath Inc. (NYSE:PATH) stands against ARK Invest’s top stock picks for 2024.
ARK Investment Management LLC, more commonly known as ARK Invest, is an American investment management firm headquartered in St. Petersburg, Florida, that oversees several actively managed ETFs. It was registered in 2014 by Catherine Wood, who is known for making big bets on disruptive technology like self-driving carse and genomics. The investment fund has around $6.7 billion in assets under management.
READ ALSO: Cathie Wood’s 11 Favorite AI Stocks and Jim Cramer November Portfolio: Top 10 Stocks.
Wood’s flagship fund has faced pressures for the third straight year, with outflows at nearly $1.8 billion during the first six months of 2024, which was close to triple the outflows seen in 2023. Its closing price of $57.85 on November 11 was down 60% from the highs of early 2021. In a letter posted to investors in July, she acknowledged that the fund’s performance was challenged by certain stock picks and the overall macroeconomic environment, but added that ‘our conviction in and commitment to investing in disruptive innovation have not wavered’.
The ARK Invest CEO argued that the fund’s holdings were set to benefit once the Fed rate cuts begin and that she anticipates another period of strong returns, reminiscent of the gains witnessed during the initial days of the pandemic. In August this year, in the hope of buying the dip, Wood piled into several tech stocks whose shares had tumbled in the months prior. Since the announcement of interest rate cuts in September, ARK’s flagship ETF has grown 25%, with a major upward spike in the week running up to and following the presidential elections, which Donald Trump won on November 5.
In a post-election message released to investors, Wood likened the country’s current economic situation to the Reagan era in the early 1980s, when the interest rate and tax cuts resulted in robust economic growth, eventually helping the United States grow out of deficit and into a surplus in the Clinton era.
Cathie Wood predicts a bright future and has stated that Trump’s policies will ‘turbocharge’ the American economy more powerfully than the Reagan Revolution did. She expects the newly elected president to slash regulations and cut tax rates, as he did during his first term.
Trump during his election campaign vowed to reduce the corporate tax rate to 15%, after having already cut the rate from 35% to 21% in his presidency between 2017 and 2021. Having said that, Wood believes that businesses will put investments on hold until the promised cuts are delivered, which means the positive anticipated impact on the economy will be delayed.
Methodology
We scanned the ARK Investment Management portfolio, as of September 30, 2024, and picked the top 10 stocks according to their stake value. The figures were sourced from the Insider Monkey Database.
Why are we interested in the stocks that hedge funds pile into? The reason is simple: our research has shown that we can outperform the market by imitating the top stock picks of the best hedge funds. Our quarterly newsletter’s strategy selects 14 small-cap and large-cap stocks every quarter and has returned 275% since May 2014, beating its benchmark by 150 percentage points (see more details here).
A symbolic representation of innovation, with a programmer working on a laptop in front of robotic arms and low code development environment.
UiPath Inc. (NYSE:PATH)
Stake Value as of Q3 2024: $268,157,467
UiPath Inc. (NYSE:PATH) is an artificial intelligence software and enterprise automation company that offers a range of robotic process automation (RPA) solutions. It was founded in Bucharest, Romania, in 2005 and is now headquartered in New York City.
The stock has lost 47% of its share value year-to-date due to an abrupt CEO change and lower guidance for the full year declared at the end of the first fiscal quarter, which spooked investors. Despite the crash, Cathie Wood, in late May, purchased shares worth $28 million of one of her favorite AI stocks.
The share price is beginning to recover and has gained 5% since the announcement of strong results for Q2 2025 on September 5. During the quarter, the company beat its guidance and posted significant growth in key financial metrics. UiPath Inc. (NYSE:PATH)’s ARR grew 19% year-over-year to a total of $1.55 billion, attributed to a net new ARR of $43 million. Revenue for the quarter was posted at $316 million, up 10% from last year.
The company also witnessed a robust increase in its cloud ARR, for both hybrid and SaaS, which ended the quarter at $850 million, representing a 65% increase. The number of customers with $1 million or more in ARR increased to 293, while those with at least $100,000 in ARR grew to 2,163 customers. EPS for the quarter was logged at $0.04, beating expectations of $0.03.
After impressive results in Q2 2025, UiPath Inc. (NYSE:PATH) has raised its guidance for the third quarter. It anticipates revenue between $345 million and $350 million, an ARR between $1.60 billion and $1.605 billion, and a non-GAAP operating income of around $27 million. The company is committed to focusing on its growth products and enhancing partnerships to become a more customer-centric organization.
Wall Street analysts are still cautious about the stock, with a consensus Hold rating. However, they forecast a median share price upside potential of 12% for UiPath. It is among the top picks from the ARK Invest stock portfolio, representing 2.45% of its holdings.
Overall PATH ranks 10th among the ARK Invest’s top Stock Picks for 2024. While we acknowledge the potential of PATH as an investment, our conviction lies in the belief that AI stocks hold greater promise for delivering higher returns, and doing so within a shorter timeframe. If you are looking for an AI stock that is more promising than PATH but that trades at less than 5 times its earnings, check out our report about the cheapest AI stock.
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Disclosure: None. This article is originally published at Insider Monkey.