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The Street
The Street
Dan Weil

Cathie Wood Watch: Ark Sells Shopify, Buys Coinbase

Cathie Wood, chief executive of Ark Investment Management, bought and sold some of her biggest names Monday.

All the valuations below are as of Monday’s close, unless otherwise noted.

Ark funds dumped 498,572 shares of e-commerce host Shopify (SHOP) valued at $23.9 million. That’s quite large for a typical Wood trade.

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It follows last Thursday’s sale valued at $35.5 million as of that day’s close. But Shopify is still the eighth biggest holding of Wood’s flagship Ark Innovation ETF (ARKK).

Shopify’s revenue surged 26% in the fourth quarter, as merchants continue to grow their online sales offerings. But the company’s net loss widened by 68%. Its stock has climbed 36% year to date and 3% over the past 12 months.

Also Monday, Ark funds snagged 157,043 shares of Coinbase Global (COIN), the largest U.S. cryptocurrency exchange, valued at $8.6 million.

The company’s shares have tumbled 59% over the past 12 months amid turmoil in the cryptocurrency market. But they have rebounded 54% this year, helped by bitcoin’s recovery. Coinbase is the fifth biggest holding in Ark Innovation.

Wood Buys Roblox, Sells Exact Sciences

Ark funds purchased 198,757 shares of Roblox (RBLX), an online video game platform, valued at $7.8 million.

Roblox stock has plunged 17% since April 14, after the company estimated that average bookings per daily active user were in a range of down 2% to up 1% in March from a year earlier. Wood may have seen the stock’s drop as a buying opportunity.

Roblox shares are still up a hefty 33% year to date, and have gained 10% over the past 12 months. Roblox is the 12th biggest holding in Ark Innovation ETF.

Finally, Ark funds unloaded 19,295 shares of Exact Sciences (EXAS), valued at $1.3 million. This came after Ark shed $26.8 million of the stock last week.

Exact Sciences is a medical diagnostics provider famous for its Cologuard at-home colon cancer test. The stock has ascended 31% thus far in 2023, buoyed by strong earnings, and 6% over the last 12 months.

Ark has unloaded more than 4 million shares of Exact Sciences since Jan. 1. But it’s still the sixth biggest holding in Ark Innovation ETF.

Wood’s Lagging Returns

Meanwhile, Wood’s performance hasn’t exactly lit the investment world on fire over the past year, as her young technology stocks have slumped. Ark Innovation has descended 33% during that period and 77% from its February 2021 peak.

Nonetheless, the fund has bounced back 17% so far this year, as tech stocks have rebounded in general.

Mama Cathie, as Wood is known to her fans, defends her strategy by noting that she has a five-year investment horizon. But the five-year annualized return of $7 billion-asset Ark Innovation was negative 0.04% through April 24, compared with positive 11.39% 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.

But Ark Innovation enjoyed a net investment inflow of $48 million during the five days through April 21, and an inflow of $508 million over the last year, according to ETF research firm VettaFi.

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