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The Street
The Street
Dan Weil

Cathie Wood Watch: Ark Continues Coinbase Buying Spree

Famed money manager Cathie Wood, chief executive of Ark Investment Management, continued to buy and sell some of her core names Wednesday.

Ark funds purchased 213,519 shares of Coinbase Global (COIN), the largest U.S. cryptocurrency exchange, valued at $13.1 million as of Wednesday’s close.

Wood has been building up her Coinbase position for months. The company’s shares have tumbled 65% over the past year amid turmoil in the cryptocurrency market. But they have rebounded 70% this year, helped by bitcoin’s ascent.

Coinbase is the seventh biggest holding in Ark’s flagship Ark Innovation ETF (ARKK).

DON’T MISS: Cathie Wood’s Theory Behind Her Firm's Tesla Investment

On the selling side, Ark funds dumped 207,747 shares of online sports gambling platform DraftKings (DKNG), valued at $4.1 million as of Wednesday’s close.

The stock has climbed 1% in the last year and 65% year to date amid strength in the sports gambling market. DraftKings is the 11th biggest holding for Ark Innovation ETF.

Wood Pares Exact Sciences, Nvidia Holdings

Ark Innovation unloaded 52,703 shares of Exact Sciences (EXAS), valued at $3.4 million as of Wednesday’s close. The company is a medical diagnostics provider famous for its Cologuard at-home colon cancer test.

Exact Sciences shares have climbed 24% thus far in 2023, buoyed by strong earnings and the overall market’s rally.

That said, the stock has descended 16% over the past year. Wood has unloaded more than 2 million Exact Sciences shares in 2023. The company remains the fourth biggest holding in Ark Innovation ETF.

Ark funds jettisoned 7,257 shares of semiconductor titan Nvidia (NVDA), valued at $1.5 million as of Wednesday’s close.

Nvidia shares jumped 13% Thursday morning, after the company issued a strong earnings outlook Wednesday. They have surged 60% year to date, and are up 4% over the past year, held back by weakness in the chip sector.

Don't Miss: Nvidia Leans Into AI 'Inflection Point,' Touts $600 Billion Market

Wood’s Returns Tumble

Meanwhile, Wood’s performance hasn’t exactly overwhelmed the investment world over the past year, as her young technology stocks have slumped. Ark Innovation has descended 37% during that period and 76% from its February 2021 peak.

Still, the fund has bounced back 24% so far this year, as tech stocks have rebounded in general.

Wood defends her strategy by noting that she has a five-year investment horizon. But the five-year annualized return of Ark Innovation was 0.92% through Feb. 22, compared with 10.02% for the S&P 500.

The fund’s performance also doesn’t come close to Wood’s goal for annualized returns of 15% over five-year periods.

Ark Innovation, with $7.3 billion in assets, suffered a net investment outflow of $178 million during the past five days, according to ETF research firm VettaFi. But it enjoyed an inflow of $934 million over the last year.

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