Cathie Wooden is making one other daring name on the U.S. economic system and inventory market.
In a 2026 outlook letter printed on Jan. 15, the ARK Make investments founder and CEO says the U.S. economic system is storing up vitality for a pointy rebound.
“Regardless of sustained actual gross home product progress throughout the previous three years, the underlying U.S. economic system has suffered a rolling recession and has developed right into a coiled spring that would bounce again powerfully throughout the subsequent few years,” she mentioned.
Wooden mentioned post-Covid excessive rates of interest squeezed the economic system, hitting housing, manufacturing, and non-AI funding. However she is optimistic that easing charges and rising productiveness may launch progress potential.
Wooden wrote in a publish on X (the previous Twitter) that the subsequent three years may appear to be “Reaganomics on steroids,” which she believes may result in “one other golden age” for the U.S. inventory market.
“Early in my profession, I keep in mind how deregulation, tax cuts, sound financial coverage, and peace by means of energy despatched the greenback hovering, which put a lid on the gold value,” she defined.
Within the Reagan period, a mixture of these forces helped the market enter a protracted bull that ran by means of a lot of the Eighties and Nineteen Nineties.
“The Trump Administration’s insurance policies are echoing the early days of Reaganomics within the Eighties, when the greenback practically doubled,” Wooden mentioned.
Wooden focuses on rising high-tech firms in areas together with synthetic intelligence, blockchain, biomedical expertise, and robotics.
She gained a status after the Ark Innovation ETF delivered a 153% return in 2020. In 2025, the flagship Ark Innovation ETF (ARKK) is up 35.49%, far outpacing the S&P 500’s return of 17.88% in the identical interval.
Tesla (TSLA): 10.14%
CRISPR Therapeutics (CRSP): 5.29%
Roku (ROKU): 5.09%
Coinbase International (COIN): 5.07%
Tempus AI (TEM): 4.98%
Shopify (SHOP): 4.67%
Robinhood Markets (HOOD): 4.06%
Beam Therapeutics (BEAM): 3.79%
Palantir Applied sciences (PLTR): 3.57%
Roblox (RBLX): 3.54%
Wooden’s model brings candy wins in rising markets but in addition painful losses in bearish ones, as seen in 2022, when the Ark Innovation ETF tumbled greater than 60%.
These swings have weighed on Wooden’s long-term outcomes. As of Jan. 16, the Ark Innovation ETF has delivered a five-year annualized return of -10.31%, whereas the S&P 500 has an annualized return of 14.66% over the identical interval, in response to information from Morningstar.
From 2014 to 2024, the Ark Innovation ETF worn out $7 billion in investor wealth, in response to an evaluation by Morningstar’s analyst Amy Arnott. That made it the third-biggest wealth destroyer amongst mutual funds and ETFs in Arnott’s rating.
By way of the inventory market into 2026, Wooden as soon as once more rejects the AI bubble speak, saying it “is years away” and “essentially the most highly effective capital spending cycle in historical past” is coming.
“What as soon as was the cap in spending appears to have turn into a flooring now that the AI, robotics, vitality storage, blockchain expertise, and multiomics sequencing platforms are prepared for prime time,” she mentioned.
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Wooden famous that buyers right now are adopting AI at twice the tempo they adopted the web within the Nineteen Nineties, with 2026 prone to carry higher person experiences, together with use circumstances equivalent to ChatGPT Well being.
“This yr ought to see materials steps ahead on [the AI] entrance by means of person experiences which can be extra intentional, intuitive, and built-in,” she wrote.
Wooden additionally revisited Bitcoin and gold. Whereas gold surged 65% in 2025 and Bitcoin slipped 6%, Wooden highlighted Bitcoin’s function as a portfolio diversifier.
“The correlation between Bitcoin and gold is decrease than that between the S&P 500 and bonds,” Wooden mentioned. “In different phrases, bitcoin needs to be a very good supply of diversification for asset allocators searching for greater returns per unit of danger throughout the years forward.”
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This story was initially printed by TheStreet on Jan 19, 2026, the place it first appeared within the Economic system part. Add TheStreet as a Most popular Supply by clicking right here.