"Wood Sister" sets sights on Japanese stocks? Makes first move in over a year to buy Line

After more than a year, is "Wood Sister" optimistic about the Japanese technology giant LY Corporation again?

On December 26th, according to data compiled by Bloomberg, ARKF Fund managed by "Wood Sister," a well-known Wall Street investor and CEO of ARK Invest, purchased a total of approximately 1.71 million shares of LY Corporation stock last Thursday and Friday. Prior to this, in the first four quarters until September, ARKF Fund had been reducing its holdings of LY Corporation.

LY Corporation is the operator of communication software LINE and "Yahoo Japan," with the majority of its shares held by a joint venture between SoftBank and South Korean company Naver. With the help of strong quarterly performance, LY Corporation's stock price has been continuously rising over the past two months. The stock price of LY Corporation rose 2.47% on Tuesday, erasing the previous decline.

Compared to the Nasdaq 100 Index, the ARKF Fund is expected to have its best performance since 2020. Data shows that the ARKF Fund has gained nearly 95% year-to-date, while the Nasdaq 100 Index has risen 54% this year. Currently, the fund's major holdings include Coinbase, Block, and Shopify, with Coinbase's stock price already up 422% this year.

In addition, another fund managed by "Wood Sister," ARKK, has also achieved a return rate of 74% year-to-date. She attributes this success to a concentrated investment strategy in a small number of "carefully selected" stocks during the market downturn. Now, as the market gradually stabilizes, ARK is diversifying its investment portfolio and paying more attention to the IPO market. With a clearer outlook, ARK has also increased its holdings of some previously sold stocks.

It is worth mentioning that with the Nikkei 225 Index and the TOPIX Index both reaching 33-year highs this year, Japanese stocks have undoubtedly become a beautiful landscape in the Asian and even global markets. Year-to-date, both of these major Japanese benchmark indices have risen by more than 20%, surpassing most other stock indices in Asia.

According to data from the Tokyo Stock Exchange, as of November, foreign investors have been net sellers of Japanese stocks for only three months this year, while the other eight months have seen capital inflows.

Note: LINE and Yahoo Japan implemented a business merger in March 2021, providing network-based services such as advertising, e-commerce, and finance. They plan to achieve a sales target of 2 trillion yen (approximately 100.4 billion yuan) by the fiscal year 2023. Subsequently, on October 1st of this year, LINE officially announced its name change to LY Corporation (the initials of LINE and Yahoo).