The stock market in recent months became a fight between the tomorrow trade and the live-for-today bid, and in the last week it turned messy.
The stocks valued on promises for a transformed future have been sold hard in favor of those poised to thrive in today’s spring-loaded economic revival. Yet after last week’s jagged swings culminating in Friday’s selling crescendo and powerful upside reversal, might these adversaries be able to coexist more peaceably for a while?
The “disruptive technology” stocks and pre-revenue upstarts and speculative SPACs with a high story-to-substance ratio have had a thorough flush since mid-February.
The fixation on the feast-to-famine ARK Invest ETFs has been appropriate, irresistible and probably now overdone. The flagship ARK Innovation fund (ARKK) at the Friday morning low had lost more than 30% in about three weeks. The fund has been a popular enough short that shares are hard to borrow and Wall Street desks have been busy creating synthetic versions of the ETF for hedge funds to bet against.
Was that a short-term capitulation in this subsector, preceding a 10% bounce in ARKK from late morning into Friday’s close?
