Eight years after the Halloween 2014 launch of her well-known innovation ETF, Cathie Wood is probably reflecting on a terrible year that saw the price of her ARK Innovation ETF (NYSEARCA:ARKK) fall by about 70%. When looking back over the entire course of the project, has ARKK stock given investors a trick or a treat?

The exchange-traded fund ARKK has generated a return for investors of 90.4% over its eight-year history. The returns accumulated by the S&P 500 (SP500) and its mirrored ETFs (NYSEARCA:SPY) (NYSEARCA:VOO) are all slightly higher than that return (NYSEARCA:IVV). The S&P has generated a return of 92.8% during the course of ARKK.

This underperformance has increased significantly during the last two years. In February 2021, ARKK reached its peak. Since its start nearly seven years earlier, the fund had returned +682% at that time.

Since that peak, the ETF has suffered major difficulties, particularly in 2022. Rising interest rates and shifting investor preferences have forced massive selling in the ARKK-favored innovation-focused names. As a result, the ETF has fallen 75% from its peak, returning it to levels below those seen before COVID.

Arkk stock overview

The share price of ARKK is now hovering around $38 and recently approached $33. If that threshold is broken, Wood’s flagship fund will be trading at its lowest level in five years.

See ARKK’s performance in 2022, along with that of Wood’s other actively managed exchange-traded funds: (ARKW), (ARKF), (ARKG), (ARKQ), and (ARKX). In other ARKK-related news, Cathie Wood and her colleagues think that Tesla has the ability to grow its total addressable market tenfold.