Cathie Wood Goes Bargain Hunting: 3 Stocks She Just Bought

September has historically been the most challenging month for investors, but Cathie Wood likes her chances. The founder-CEO of Ark Invest is always looking to optimize the aggressive growth exchange-traded funds she manages as chief investment officer, and she's not going to let market trends get in the way.

Wood was busier than usual as a buyer, kicking off the shortened holiday trading week. She bought Archer Aviation (NYSE: ACHR), Robinhood Markets (NASDAQ: HOOD), and Cerebras (NASDAQ: CBRS) on Tuesday, adding to existing Ark Invest positions. The stocks are 60%, 48%, and 24% below their recent highs, respectively. Let's take a closer look at these three stocks she saw as buying opportunities.

Ark Invest's Cathie Wood. Image source: Getty Images.

1. Archer Aviation

It's easy to see why Archer Aviation is a battleground stock. It has a mere $6.9 million in trailing revenue, and that's not a typo, as it is practically a pre-revenue business. Archer Aviation stock is trading in the single digits, but commands a market cap of $4.5 billion. Is it any wonder why its average trading volume is roughly 36 million shares a day?

However, take an eagle's eye view of the situation -- an easy thing to do since it's a leading developer of electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) aircraft -- and you get a rosier picture. Archer already has lucrative partnerships in place to deploy its next-gen aircraft with commercial and military partners. It even has a deal to serve as the official air taxi provider for the Olympic Games in Los Angeles two summers from now.

Archer aircraft don't need much room to take off. True to its name, the all-electric flying machines take off straight up as a helicopter or drone would. There are some weight and range challenges for its flagship Midnight aircraft that will limit how many passengers it can take on and how far it can go, but the market is emerging for it as a provider of short-range luxury taxi service from metropolitan airports to dense city centers and other time-sensitive applications.

The high-tech industrial stock is a week away from celebrating its fifth anniversary as a public company, but there won't be a party. Archer shares have been cut nearly in half from their IPO price of $10. However, like its aircraft, business is going to pick up in a hurry in the coming years. Here are analyst revenue targets for the next several years:

• 2026: $15 million
• 2027: $143 million
• 2028: $511 million
• 2029: $1.39 billion

Investors may be impatient, but time is on Archer's side. Its clean balance sheet is flush with cash, enough to shrink its $4.5 billion market cap to an enterprise value of $3.1 billion. It's a broken IPO, but not necessarily a broken business.

2. Robinhood Markets

Ark lightened its position in Robinhood earlier this summer, but Wood is buying again. She added to Ark's stake in the trading platform on Friday, heading into the Labor Day weekend. She was a buyer again on Tuesday.

Revenue rose 32% in the second quarter, a welcome bounce from the 15% increase it posted in the previous quarter (its weakest year-over-year growth in more than three years). Crypto has been ticking higher in recent weeks after a brutal correction. The stock and options markets keep climbing the wall of worry. The recent push into futures and predictive markets should resonate with its young, tech-savvy core.

Despite the positive catalysts, analysts are bracing for just 7% revenue growth in the current quarter. If so, it would be Robinhood's weakest top-line growth since late 2022. It's still worth noting that Wood has now bought Robinhood in back-to-back trading days after being a seller in June, July, and August.

3. Cerebras Systems

Cerebras Systems has been volatile since going public just four months ago. It has more than doubled off its debut pricing, but it's also been a broken IPO. It's currently trading just above its $185 initial price, but that doesn't mean its days as a bucking bronco are over.

Cerebras is bringing something new to the artificial intelligence chip architecture table. It offers a mammoth-sized GPU, consisting of a single continuous sheet of silicon that eliminates the need to wire potentially hundreds of chips together. It's not just simplicity. Cerebras claims to offer the world's fastest AI infrastructure.

It disappointed investors in its first quarter as a public company in June, which is often a cardinal sin for a market debutante. Its next quarterly update in mid-August didn't fare much better. Revenue rose a better-than-expected 74%, and Cerebras raised its full-year guidance. It wasn't enough. A widening loss and a rally in shares ahead of the report resulted in a 12% one-day drop. With the shares continuing to retreat close to their IPO price, Wood is a buyer this week.

Rick Munarriz has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.