Cathie Wood Goes Bargain Hunting: 1 "Magnificent Seven" Artificial Intelligence (AI) Stock She Just Couldn't Pass Up During the Nasdaq Sell-Off

Source The Motley Fool

Cathie Wood is the CEO and Chief Investment Officer of Ark Invest, which offers a small catalog of innovation-focused exchange-traded funds (ETFs). Those funds' portfolios tend to be dominated by smaller, speculative companies in emerging industries.

While these investment preferences may suggest that Wood has an appetite for risk, her funds also hold a number of blue chip stocks -- including one "Magnificent Seven" stock she just scooped up more of amid the Nasdaq's sharp sell-off.

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Wood just bought Nvidia

Wood has an interesting relationship with semiconductor behemoth Nvidia (NASDAQ: NVDA). Although she's held positions the chipmaker for years, she actually has been a seller of the stock more often than a buyer.

Ironically, she dumped nearly all of her Nvidia position around November 2022 -- right around the time ChatGPT was released and artificial intelligence (AI) emerged as the next big megatrend.

Since the start of 2025, Nvidia's stock price has been under a lot of pressure due to a host of factors: China's DeepSeek models, rising competition in the GPU space from Advanced Micro Devices and cloud hyperscalers designing their own custom AI chips, and most recently, macro uncertainty around President Donald Trump's tariff and trade policies.

Now, with Nvidia shares down by 24% from the all-time high they hit just a few months ago, Wood may have a second chance. Between April 7 and 8, her funds purchased roughly 341,000 shares of Nvidia, essentially doubling Ark's stake in it.

A person holding up money.

Image Source: Getty Images.

Why does Nvidia look tempting now?

From a macro perspective, the secular tailwinds continue to support the growth of the data center industry, and Nvidia remains well positioned to continue capturing a large proportion of the expanding market for AI accelerator chips. Consider what AI's biggest spenders have up their sleeves. Cloud hyperscalers Amazon, Alphabet, and Microsoft all announced earlier this year that they intend to continue investing heavily in infrastructure to support AI. Meta Platforms expressed a similar outlook during its fourth-quarter earnings call.

On a combined basis, these four Magnificent Seven companies' AI capital expenditures could top $320 billion in 2025 alone. Each is a major customer of Nvidia, so I'm optimistic about its prospects relating to their data center build-outs.

In addition, Nvidia recently released its newest GPU architecture, Blackwell, sales of which have so far outperformed management's expectations. And while the early indicators for Blackwell are encouraging, Nvidia is on track to deliver its successor GPU architecture in a couple of years. This all positions Nvidia well for robust long-term growth as the AI narrative continues to unfold.

Even in the face of encouraging business trends, Nvidia stock has gotten decimated during the ongoing Nasdaq sell-off. It trades at a price-to-earnings (P/E) multiple of about 39. It has only rarely been this low in more than five years.

NVDA PE Ratio Chart

NVDA PE Ratio data by YCharts.

While Wood's purchases of Nvidia aren't necessarily large compared to her core holdings, I find her decisions to buy the stock on consecutive days this week pretty interesting. Nvidia's underlying business looks solid, and with the stock now trading at a historically cheap valuation, it's just too hard to pass up -- even for a more speculative investor such as Wood.

I think growth investors with long-term time horizons should consider following Wood's lead here and take advantage of Nvidia's slide. The long-term outlooks for the company and the AI narrative in general still look positive. In that context, the current sour sentiment in the stock market looks to have created a potentially lucrative opportunity here for patient investors who can stomach some volatility.

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Suzanne Frey, an executive at Alphabet, is a member of The Motley Fool’s board of directors. Randi Zuckerberg, a former director of market development and spokeswoman for Facebook and sister to Meta Platforms CEO Mark Zuckerberg, is a member of The Motley Fool's board of directors. John Mackey, former CEO of Whole Foods Market, an Amazon subsidiary, is a member of The Motley Fool’s board of directors. Adam Spatacco has positions in Alphabet, Amazon, Meta Platforms, Microsoft, and Nvidia. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Advanced Micro Devices, Alphabet, Amazon, Meta Platforms, Microsoft, and Nvidia. The Motley Fool recommends the following options: long January 2026 $395 calls on Microsoft and short January 2026 $405 calls on Microsoft. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

Disclaimer: For information purposes only. Past performance is not indicative of future results.
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