Cathie Wood Goes Bargain Hunting: 3 Stocks She Just Bought | The Motley Fool (2024)

Cathie Wood was particularly busy on Tuesday. The Ark Invest founder, CEO, and money manager added to eight of her existing positions. We know that because Wood offers up her daily transactions at the end of every trading day.

What is she nibbling on these days? Wood added to existing positions in Teladoc Health(TDOC 1.32%), Roblox (RBLX 2.57%), and Rocket Lab USA(RKLB 1.42%) on Tuesday. Let's take a closer look.

1. Teladoc Health

A lot of the initial pandemic market darlings that would go on to plummet over the past two years have started to recover, but Teladoc Health isn't one of them. The pioneer of telehealth services hit another 52-week low on Tuesday. It's obviously trading lower in 2023, bucking the trend where most of the market is posting year-to-date gains. The shares are down a brutal 93% since peaking in early 2021.

Teladoc was an obvious winner when the COVID-19 crisis made it challenging to provide medical care in person. Its flagship platform offers video consultations for a wide variety of medical and wellness needs. It took advantage of its ascent to make a major acquisition, but revenue growth has decelerated for nine consecutive quarters, a run that started with a 151% year-over-year gain that was padded by the purchase of Livongo down to a more modest 10% increase in its latest report.

A plot twist here is that investors initially cheered Teladoc's second-quarter performance. It was a slight beat on both ends of the income statement. Net losses are narrowing. Reported profitability is still a couple of years away, but Teladoc did deliver positive free cash flow in its latest report.

There is obviously still a future for telemedicine stocks even in the new normal. There are cost savings and convenience factors that were resonating with consumers and businesses alike long before the pandemic. Teladoc's business continues to evolve. It will likely take a couple of blowout quarters to turn market sentiment around, but at this point you can't blame Wood for bottom fishing. Despite the 93% plunge from its peak, it remains one of her largest holdings. In short, she's been routinely adding to her stake on the way down.

2. Roblox

Another of Wood's holdings trading lower in 2023 that she has been adding to lately is Roblox. The online gaming specialist didn't reach a 52-week low like Teladoc did on Tuesday, but it did hit its intraday low for 2023.

Roblox is growing faster than Teladoc. Bookings for the interactive platform rose 22% in its latest quarter. It did experience a sequential dip in daily active users, but at 65.5 million it's still a healthy 25% increase over the past year. Roblox isn't going away, judging by the 14 billion hours spent on the platform in the second quarter. Remaining relevant and improving its bottom line are the keys to closing out 2023 with a gain.

3. Rocket Lab

Shares of Rocket Lab were volatile in Tuesday trading, and that's often a dinner bell for Wood's opportunistic approach to buying some of her favorite stocks on short-term sell-offs. The space exploration specialist opened 16% lower -- trading down by as much as 17% during the day -- after one of its rockets exploded a couple of minutes after liftoff.

It was an uncrewed flight, so the story didn't really generate headlines outside of Wall Street and astronautical engineering circles. Rocket Lab should take a financial hit for the aircraft and the satellite payload it was carrying. Its reputation may very well take a hit, too. However, Rocket Lab's history of safe launches before having to remotely terminate this particular mission following an anomaly had investors rethinking the markdown. Rocket Lab would go on to make back half of its initial drop, shedding less than 8% of its value by the end of the trading day. Depending on how early Wood added to her Rocket Lab positions in a pair of her exchange-traded funds, she likely came out ahead on those transactions despite the down day.

As a space exploration company that is already generating real revenue, Rocket Lab should bounce back. A little more insight into the issue causing the botched mission will help ease investor doubts.