Cathie Wood is still buying Teladoc shares: here’s why

Shares of Teladoc Health Inc (NYSE: TDOC) have been in a freefall this year, now down roughly 65% for the year. Still, who continues to see value in the world’s largest telemedicine company is Cathie Wood.

Wood’s bull case for Teladoc shares

The influential investor loaded up on another $20 million worth of TDOC, after the stock crashed 40% on disappointing Q1 results earlier this week. Explaining why on CNBC’s “The Exchange”, she said:

Our point of view is that Teladoc is becoming the healthcare information backbone of the U.S. It serves 16% of Americans are paid users, and we look for 15% to 20% range for an S-curve. As a trend moves into that market share, that’s the beginning of an S-curve.

Over the next five to ten years, Wood is convinced Teladoc will emerge as a “category killer” – one of the biggest stories in healthcare.

Wood isn’t bothered by weakness in DTC

The billionaire investor agreed that direct-to-consumer helped propel the overall business during the COVID pandemic, but said business-to-business was the “real story” in Teladoc.

Nobody mentioned the New York tri-state area hospital system that Teladoc won from another entity. What was also not mentioned is Amazon’s decision to partner with Teladoc as opposed to compete with it.

Through her family of Ark exchange-traded funds (ETFs), Wood now owns over 11% of the multinational virtual healthcare company. TDOC market cap has now shrunk to under $5.50 billion.