ETFs / ARKK
What If You Had Invested in ARKK 10 Years Ago?
ARK Innovation ETF (ARKK) with real monthly prices, dividends reinvested, through November 2026.
ARKK $75.46 ▲ +3.16% last close, Nov 06, 2026
If you had invested $1,000 in ARKK in November 2016, today it would be worth
$4,067
Same $1,000 in the S&P 500 (SPY): $3,907
If you had put $500 a month into ARKK since November 2016, your $60,500 would be worth today
$96,003
Same plan in the S&P 500 (SPY): $129,289
More options in the What If calculator.
ARKK live price chart
ARKK returns by period
| Period | Total return | Per year | $1,000 became | SPY per year |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 year | -5.3% | -5.3% | $947 | +8.8% |
| 3 years | +63.7% | +17.8% | $1,637 | +18.7% |
| 5 years | -27.4% | -6.2% | $726 | +11.5% |
| 10 years | +306.7% | +15.1% | $4,067 | +14.6% |
| Since 2014 | +310.3% | +12.4% | $4,103 | — |
ARKK year by year
Best full year: 2020 (+152.7%). Worst: 2022 (-67.0%).
| Year | ARKK | SPY | What happened |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2026 (so far) | -1.9% | +8.7% | |
| 2025 | +35.5% | +17.7% | |
| 2024 | +8.4% | +24.9% | |
| 2023 | +69.0% | +26.2% | A rebound of about 69%, which still left the fund far below its 2021 high. |
| 2022 | -67.0% | -18.2% | Rising rates crushed unprofitable growth companies, and ARKK lost about two thirds of its value in one year. |
| 2021 | -23.4% | +28.7% | |
| 2020 | +152.7% | +18.3% | Lockdowns and near-zero interest rates fueled a rush into speculative growth stocks, and ARKK gained about 150%. |
| 2019 | +35.1% | +31.2% | |
| 2018 | +3.5% | -4.6% | |
| 2017 | +87.3% | +21.7% | ARKK nearly doubled as Tesla and its other high-growth holdings rallied. |
| 2016 | -2.0% | +12.0% | |
| 2015 | +3.8% | +1.2% |
ARKK: all at once or every month?
Take $12,000: all of it on day one, or $1,000 a month for a year. Across every starting month since 2014 (134 of them), the lump sum was ahead after 12 months in 93 (69%). ARKK's swings make the start month matter more than almost anything else. Monthly investing won every start in 2021 and most in 2015 and 2022, when it caught the fund on the way down. The best case for monthly investing was a start in October 2021, when it finished the year 113% ahead.
Worst drop
ARKK's worst fall in this history was -77.1%, a near wipe-out, from January 2021 to December 2022. It is still below that high today, 5.8 years later. $1,000 invested at that peak shrank to about $229 at the low.
ARKK peaked in early 2021 after a year in which its holdings, from Tesla to Zoom, soared. Rising interest rates then crushed unprofitable growth companies, and by the end of 2022 the fund had lost more than three quarters of its value.
ARKK is a concentrated bet on one firm's judgment, and its results depend enormously on the start date.
About ARKK
| Issuer | ARK Invest |
| Launched | October 2014 |
| Tracks | None (actively managed) |
| Expense ratio | 0.75% |
| Holdings | About 35 to 55 companies chosen by ARK |
Fund details as of 2025. Check the issuer for the current expense ratio and holdings.
ARKK is Cathie Wood's flagship fund. Her firm, ARK Invest, buys companies it believes will lead 'disruptive innovation': genomics, robotics, AI, fintech, electric and self-driving cars. Tesla, Coinbase, Roku and Roblox have been among its best-known holdings.
Its history is the clearest example on this site of what a hot streak does to a fund. ARKK rose about 150% in 2020, billions of dollars poured in near the top, and it then lost roughly three quarters of its value by the end of 2022.
Fund return versus investor return
A fund's published return assumes you held it the whole time. Most ARKK money did not. Its assets jumped from a few billion dollars to more than $25 billion around the 2021 peak, then shrank as the fund fell. Fund-flow studies, including Morningstar's, have found that ARKK's investors as a group lost billions of dollars, even though the fund's return since launch is positive.
Active fee, active risk
At 0.75% a year ARKK costs 25 times what VOO charges. That pays for Cathie Wood's team to make concentrated bets on a few dozen companies, and the holdings change often. Unusually for an active fund, ARK publishes its trades every day.
Questions about ARKK
Did ARKK beat the S&P 500?
Almost exactly tied. Over the last 10 years the gap was 0.5 percentage points a year: +15.1% a year for ARKK against +14.6% for SPY, dividends reinvested. It also fell harder at its worst (-77.1% against -23.9% for SPY over the same history).
Does ARKK pay dividends?
Not regularly. It has made occasional year-end distributions, mostly capital gains from selling winners, and none in most recent years. Nearly all of ARKK's return, good or bad, comes from the share price.