Cathie Wood is once again proving she’s not afraid to board a crashing plane… metaphorically, of course.

After Archer Aviation’s stock got yeeted nearly 40% in a month (including a 14% drop Friday), ARK Invest swooped in to buy over 3 million shares of the electric air taxi startup. Because when everyone else runs for the exits, Cathie grabs the joystick and yells, “To the moon!”

Archer’s selloff started Thursday after a $650 million stock offering diluted existing shareholders faster than an iced-down cocktail. The deal’s meant to fund the company’s $126 million purchase of Hawthorne Airport in Los Angeles… soon to be its flagship “vertiport” for the 2028 Olympics. Great for the business, less great for the share price.

(Source: Sherwood News)

But while retail investors were panicking over dilution, Mama Cathie saw disruption (or at least through her lenses that’s what it looked like). Archer fits neatly into ARK’s script: futuristic, unprofitable, and operating in an industry most people still call “sci-fi.”

The company’s developing eVTOL aircraft… electric vertical takeoff and landing vehicles that hover like helicopters but run on batteries instead of jet fuel. It’s one of several players, alongside Joby Aviation and Beta Technologies, racing toward FAA certification and a Ready Player One style future where Uber rides take place in the sky.

To make matters worse, Archer’s financials still look like a pre-launch rocket. Last quarter, the company posted a $129.9 million loss, albeit narrower than expected. But the real kick in the nuts was the share sale… which pushed total shares outstanding up 66% year-over-year. That’s the kind of math that makes even Cathie’s most loyal followers wince.

Still, she’s doubling down. ARK added Archer shares across three of its ETFs, going all in on the idea that once regulators give the green light, these airborne EVs will soar (figuratively and literally).

To her credit, timing’s never scared Cathie… being early is practically her love language. While Wall Street’s still treating flying taxis like sci-fi collectibles, she’s already building a hangar. This is the same woman who bet on Tesla when analysts were calling it a fad and doubled down on AI stocks before ChatGPT could spell its own name. So sure, maybe she’s early… but for Cathie, that’s just another way of saying “right eventually.” 

That said, let’s not forget that her flagship ARK Innovation ETF still hasn’t quite figured out how to innovate gains in the post-pandemic world… it’s down about 20% since 2020.

At the time of publishing this article, Stocks.News holds positions in Uber and Tesla as mentioned in the article.