Cathie Wood’s Ark Space Exploration ETF launches for trade

Cathie Wood’s ARK Investment Management’s latest fund, the ARK Space Exploration & Innovation ETF, starts trading Tuesday, a notification from CBOE Global Markets disclosed.

This will be Wood and ARK’s first exchange-traded fund launch in almost two years. In January, the hedge fund filed an offering for the Ark Space Exploration ETF to list under the ticker “ARKX.”

The actively managed fund will invest in almost 40 stocks in four related fields of space exploration and innovation: orbital aerospace, suborbital aerospace, enabling technologies, and aerospace beneficiaries, Barron’s reported.

Companies going public

ARKX, the company’s eighth ETF, launches as a growing number of private space groups prepare to go public later this year. During the last six months, seven space companies have announced special purpose acquisition company deals.

The ETF is actively managed and will hold around 80% of its assets in local and international companies involved in ARK’s venture into space exploration and innovation, based on an earlier filing.

ARK defines space exploration as “leading, enabling or benefitting from technologically enabled products and/or services that occur beyond the surface of the Earth,” as per Benzinga.

Major holding companies

Major holdings during the fund’s roll-out will include Trimble (TRMB), specializing in fields like geospatial, laser, and optical technologies; defense and aerospace groups like Kratos Defense & Security Solutions (KTOS), L3Harris Technologies (LHX); and Komatsu (6301.JT), a multinational conglomerate from Japan that builds construction and mining machinery.

Wood, chief investment officer and chief executive officer of ARK Investment Management, has established a reputation for investing in “disruptive innovation” stocks. Ark Innovation, her flagship fund, has generated over $16 billion in inflows in the past 12 months, figures by FactSet show.

ARK made it to the list of the 10 leading ETF companies with more than $41 billion in assets compared to $3.5 billion a year ago this year, according to Bloomberg.