Cathie Wood buys $14.9 million of Tempus AI stock

Cathie Wood, head of Ark Investment Management, doesn't give up on her favorite stocks easily.

Sometimes she'll buy them on the way down, betting the dip could become an opportunity. That's what she did this week, adding shares of one of her largest holdings.

In 2025, Wood's flagship Ark Innovation ETF gained 35.49%, far outpacing the S&P 500's return of 17.88% in the same period. So far this year, Wood's flagship Ark Innovation ETF (ARKK) is up 0.08%, while the S&P 500 surged 7.18%, Yahoo Finance data show.

Wood gained a reputation after the Ark Innovation ETF delivered a 153% return in 2020. However, her style also brings painful losses in bearish markets, as seen in 2022, when the Ark Innovation ETF tumbled more than 60%.

Those swings have weighed on Wood's long-term gains. As of May 6, the Ark Innovation ETF has delivered a five-year annualized return of -5.83%, while the S&P 500 has an annualized return of 13.51% over the same period, according to data from Morningstar.

Cathie Wood expects a "great acceleration" brought by technology developments

Wood focuses on high-tech companies across artificial intelligence, blockchain, biomedical technology, and robotics. She thinks these businesses have strong growth potential, though their volatility often causes fluctuations in the Ark's funds.

According to Morningstar analyst Bella Albrecht, two of Wood's Ark funds were among the worst-performing ETFs in the first quarter of 2026. The Ark Next Generation Internet ETF (ARKW) ranked second on the list, while the ARK Innovation ETF placed fifth.

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From 2014 to 2024, the Ark Innovation ETF wiped out $7 billion in investor wealth, according to a March 2025 analysis by Morningstar's analyst Amy Arnott. That made it the third-biggest wealth destroyer among mutual funds and ETFs in Arnott's ranking. The analyst hasn't updated the 2025 ranking.

In a March Bloomberg podcast, Wood says the global economy is not heading into a downturn, but into what she calls a "great acceleration" driven by AI and other breakthrough technologies.

"We're not going into the Great Depression, we're going into the great acceleration," Wood said, pointing to how past technological revolutions reshaped economic growth.

She noted that global real GDP growth averaged just 0.6% between 1500 and 1900, before the Industrial Revolution lifted it to around 3% for more than a century. Now, she argues, a new wave of innovation could push growth much higher.

"We think [technologies] are going to take growth into the 7 to 8% range," Wood said, adding that the number may actually be conservative.

But not all investors agree with Wood's optimism. In the 12 months through May 7, the Ark Innovation ETF saw roughly $1.3 billion in net outflows, according to data from ETF research firm VettaFi.

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Cathie Wood buys $14.9 million of Tempus AI stock after earnings

On May 6 and May 7, Wood's Ark funds bought a total of 300,839 shares of Tempus AI Inc (TEM), according to Ark's daily trade information. These shares are valued at approximately $14.9 million based on the latest closing price of $49.43.

Shares of Tempus AI fell 7% on May 7, bringing its year-to-date decline to 16.2%.

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Tempus AI is a health care tech company that provides AI-driven diagnostic tools that help doctors make treatment decisions. It also sells the data generated from its tests to pharmaceutical companies for drug development.

The company went public in June 2024, and Wood had actively bought its stock since the IPO.

Tempus AI stock peaked near $104 in October 2025 and is now down 52% from its all-time high.

On May 5, Tempus AI reported first-quarter results that topped Wall Street expectations and slightly raised its full-year revenue outlook.

The company posted adjusted earnings of 13 cents per share, better than analysts' expectations for a 20-cent loss, while revenue rose to $348.1 million from estimates of $345.4 million. Tempus also raised its fiscal 2026 revenue guidance to a range of $1.59 billion to $1.6 billion and maintained its adjusted EBITDA forecast of about $65 million.

"Our strong financial and operational performance this quarter underscores the accelerating demand for our AI-driven diagnostic platform and the immense value of our multimodal data and corresponding AI models," CEO Eric Lefkofsky said in a statement.

"We continue to see strong momentum as we deploy more sophisticated algorithms across our platform, driving 36% revenue growth year-over-year, with particular strength in our Oncology diagnostic business and data and modeling business," he added.

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Following the report, TD Cowen on May 6 raised its price target on Tempus AI to $68 from $65 and kept a buy rating on the stock, Investing.com reported. The firm said Tempus AI's results were "in line with expectations, but the company's mantra is not to guide conservatively."

Baird analyst Catherine Ramsey Schulte, however, lowered her price target to $59 from $68, although she maintained an outperform rating following the company's earnings.

Tempus AI is the third-largest holding in Wood's Ark Innovation ETF.

Top 10 holdings of the Ark Innovation ETF as of May 7, 2026:

• Tesla (TSLA) 9.69%
• Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) 5.41%
• Tempus AI (TEM) 5.02%
• CRISPR Therapeutics (CRSP) 4.99%
• Circle Internet Group (CRCL) 4.90%
• Roku (ROKU) 4.53%
• Robinhood Markets (HOOD) 4.44%
• Coinbase (COIN) 4.25%
• Shopify (SHOP) 4.00%
• Beam Therapeutics (BEAM) 3.11%

Wood said the health care sector is "the most profound application of AI" in a March interview with Bloomberg.

"It includes the convergence of sequencing technologies, AI, and gene editing... We have 35 to 40 trillion cells in our body generating data, and AI is a data project," she said.

Other than buying more Tempus AI (TEM) shares, Wood's recent trades included adding Shopify (SHOP), GeneDx Holdings (WGS), and Intellia Therapeutics (NTLA), while trimming positions in Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), CoreWeave (CRWV), Teradyne (TER), and Twist Bioscience (TWST).

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This story was originally published May 8, 2026 at 9:13 AM.