ARK Invest's $15B Q4 Filing: Tesla at 8.7%, NVIDIA at 1.6%, and the Conviction Gap That Defines Cathie Wood

ARK Investment Management filed a Q4 2025 13F showing $15.07B across 196 positions. Tesla sits at #1 with an 8.7% weight. NVIDIA is down at #19 with 1.6%. That gap — 7.1 percentage points between the stock every other fund overweights and the stock Cathie Wood has deliberately sidelined — tells you everything about how ARK thinks and why the portfolio looks like nothing else on the 13F landscape.

TL;DR

• AUM: $15.07B across 196 positions (WhaleScore: 73.75)
• Tesla is #1: $1.31B at 8.7% — still the cornerstone of the ARK thesis
• NVIDIA at #19: $234.0M at 1.6% — a fraction of what most large funds allocate
• Innovation stack: Fintech (COIN 3.8%, HOOD 3.6%), genomics (BEAM 2.3%, TWST 1.6%), eVTOL (ACHR 1.8%), defense tech (KTOS 1.7%)
• AUM doubled from trough: Q1 2025 hit $7.09B; four quarters later, back to $15.07B — a +112% recovery
• Concentrated conviction: Top-5 = 24.8%, Top-10 = 41.7% — this is not a closet indexer
• No Apple, no JPMorgan, no Berkshire: ARK’s portfolio shares almost zero overlap with the typical institutional top 10
• Tempus AI at #10: $446.3M in the AI healthcare startup signals where ARK sees the next platform shift

Filing Snapshot

Metric	Value
Filer	ARK Investment Management LLC
CIK	0001697748
Quarter	Q4 2025
13F AUM	$15.07B
Positions	196
WhaleScore	73.75
Top-5 Concentration	24.8%
Top-10 Concentration	41.7%

Top 10 Holdings: The Anti-Index

Most large institutional portfolios lead with NVDA, AAPL, MSFT, and AMZN. ARK’s top 10 leads with Tesla, Shopify, Roku, and Coinbase. Not a single one of those names appears in the top 5 of a typical mega-filer’s 13F.

#	Ticker	Value	Weight	Shares
1	TSLA	$1.31B	8.7%	2.91M
2	SHOP	$640.5M	4.3%	3.98M
3	ROKU	$638.1M	4.2%	5.88M
4	COIN	$574.8M	3.8%	2.54M
5	PLTR	$574.5M	3.8%	3.23M
6	AMD	$551.4M	3.7%	2.57M
7	HOOD	$543.6M	3.6%	4.81M
8	TER	$456.1M	3.0%	2.36M
9	TEM	$446.3M	3.0%	7.56M
10	RBLX	$391.7M	2.6%	4.83M

The range from #1 (8.7%) to #10 (2.6%) is 6.1 percentage points. That’s a steep drop-off that creates a clear hierarchy: Tesla is the thesis, and everything else orbits around it in tiers of declining conviction.

The Tesla Bet Is the Portfolio

Tesla (TSLA) at $1.31B and 8.7% is roughly double the weight of the next largest holding. For a $15B fund with 196 positions, putting 8.7% in one name is a conscious overweight — especially when that name has underperformed the S&P 500 at various points over the past two years.

Cathie Wood has been publicly bullish on Tesla since ARK’s founding, anchoring her thesis on autonomous driving, robotaxis, and energy storage rather than current vehicle margins. The 13F weight confirms she hasn’t wavered. Whether Tesla justifies an 8.7% weight in a diversified innovation portfolio depends entirely on whether you buy the robotaxi timeline — and ARK clearly does.

NVIDIA at 1.6%: The Contrarian Underweight

Every major institutional portfolio on the 13F landscape — from D.E. Shaw to Fidelity to Vanguard — has NVIDIA as a top-3 or top-5 holding. ARK has it at position #19 with $234.0M (1.6%).

This is not an oversight. ARK’s thesis has always been that the value in AI accrues to the application layer, not the hardware layer. In Wood’s framework, Palantir (3.8%) and Tempus AI (3.0%) — companies building AI-native software platforms — are better bets than the picks-and-shovels NVIDIA play that the rest of the market has piled into.

Whether this is visionary or mistaken will only be clear in hindsight. But the positioning is unmistakably intentional: ARK is betting against the crowd on the most crowded trade of the decade.

The Innovation Stack: Fintech, Genomics, and Flying Taxis

Beyond the headline names, ARK’s portfolio reads like a thesis on technology platforms that don’t yet dominate their markets:

Fintech cluster (~9.6%): Coinbase (COIN) at 3.8% and Robinhood (HOOD) at 3.6% form a potent fintech pair. ARK is betting that crypto infrastructure and zero-commission brokerage are permanent features of the financial system, not cyclical fads.

Genomics bets (~3.9%): Beam Therapeutics at 2.3% and Twist Bioscience at 1.6% represent ARK’s long-running thesis on gene editing and synthetic biology. These are early-stage, binary-outcome companies — exactly the kind of bets that define ARK’s appetite for asymmetric risk.

eVTOL and defense tech: Archer Aviation (ACHR) at 1.8% is a bet on electric vertical takeoff aircraft — flying taxis, essentially. Kratos Defense (KTOS) at 1.7% targets autonomous military drones. Both are moonshot bets that other institutional managers avoid entirely.

AUM Volatility: From $7B to $15B in Four Quarters

ARK’s AUM trajectory has been anything but smooth:

Quarter	AUM	QoQ Change	Positions
Q3 2023	$13.07B	—	226
Q4 2023	$16.89B	+29.2%	223
Q1 2024	$14.44B	−14.5%	230
Q2 2024	$11.27B	−22.0%	190
Q3 2024	$10.93B	−3.0%	195
Q4 2024	$12.01B	+9.9%	183
Q1 2025	$7.09B	−41.0%	131
Q2 2025	$13.64B	+92.4%	191
Q3 2025	$11.59B	−15.0%	132
Q4 2025	$15.07B	+30.0%	197

The Q1 2025 plunge to $7.09B represented a 58% decline from the Q4 2023 peak of $16.89B. That’s not a drawdown — that’s a crisis-level AUM collapse that combined poor performance, investor redemptions, and portfolio compression (positions fell from 223 to 131).

The recovery has been equally dramatic. From the Q1 2025 trough of $7.09B to Q4 2025’s $15.07B is a +112% increase in four quarters. Position count rebounded from 131 to 197, suggesting ARK both attracted new capital and rebuilt the portfolio breadth.

This level of volatility is itself a signal. ARK’s concentrated, high-beta portfolio amplifies market moves in both directions. The AUM swings reflect the portfolio’s inherent risk profile more than any tactical error.

What Retail Investors Should Know

ARK is a thesis portfolio, not a diversified allocation. With 196 positions and a top-10 concentration of 41.7%, every dollar in ARK is a bet on disruptive innovation outperforming. If you own ARK ETFs, you already have exposure to these exact names at these exact weights. The 13F confirms, not supplements, what ARK’s ETFs already disclose daily.

The NVIDIA underweight is the most contrarian institutional position in the market. Nearly every fund with >$10B in AUM has NVIDIA in its top 5. ARK has it at #19. If NVIDIA’s dominance fades and application-layer AI companies capture the value, this call will look brilliant. If GPU demand stays strong, it’s an expensive miss.

ARK’s AUM volatility means the portfolio can look very different quarter to quarter. A 41% drawdown followed by a 92% rebound in back-to-back quarters means the 13F is a snapshot of a rapidly moving portfolio, not a static allocation. Track the names and weights, but don’t assume they’ll hold.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is ARK Invest’s largest holding?

Tesla (TSLA) is ARK’s #1 position at $1.31B, representing 8.7% of the $15.07B portfolio. Tesla has been ARK’s top or near-top holding for multiple quarters.

Why does ARK underweight NVIDIA?

ARK’s thesis is that AI value accrues to the application layer, not the hardware layer. NVIDIA sits at position #19 with just 1.6% weight, while AI software companies like Palantir (3.8%) and Tempus AI (3.0%) receive higher allocations.

How volatile is ARK’s AUM?

Extremely. ARK’s AUM dropped from $16.89B (Q4 2023) to $7.09B (Q1 2025) — a 58% decline — before recovering to $15.07B by Q4 2025. The concentrated, high-beta portfolio amplifies market moves in both directions.

What crypto exposure does ARK have?

Coinbase (COIN) at 3.8% and Robinhood (HOOD) at 3.6% give ARK approximately 7.4% direct exposure to crypto and fintech infrastructure. This is one of the highest crypto allocations among institutional 13F filers.

Does ARK own Apple or Microsoft?

Not in meaningful size. ARK’s portfolio shares almost zero overlap with the typical institutional top 10. The fund’s top holdings are dominated by innovation-focused names like Tesla, Shopify, Roku, and Coinbase rather than traditional mega-caps.