Cathie Wood's ARK Invest Dumps Coinbase, Adds More Robinhood Stock

Cathie Wood's ARK Invest dumped millions of dollars worth of Coinbase shares (COIN) even as the crypto exchange climbed to a 19-month closing high. The American investment management firm also added more Robinhood shares amid the stock trading platform's expansion in the United Kingdom.

Bitcoin bull Wood and ARK Invest sold 43,956 shares of Coinbase worth around $5.2 million this week as the stock reached $119.70 on the Nasdaq market, a 19-month-high last seen in April 2022.

The recent COIN share sale by ARK's Fintech Innovation exchange-traded fund (ETF) is the biggest since July 25, 2023, when the ARK Next Generation Internet ETF sold over 53,000 COIN shares.

ARK, via Ark Fintech Innovation ETF, also bought 143,063 shares of Robinhood (HOOD) valued at around $1.2 million during Monday's closing price, an addition to the 93,297 or around $780,000 HOOD shares the investment management firm added to the ARK Next Generation Internet fund last week.

ARK's HOOD purchase this week was made when the shares were trading at $8.41, down by more than 8% this month and up by 1.57% for 2023.

The recent shares offloading by ARK resembled the tranches of sales it made in October as Bitcoin, the world's largest crypto asset by market capitalization, rallied to new yearly highs.

Wood's ARK Innovation ETF made a comeback last month as it saw a 31% gain for the entire month after trailing the Nasdaq 100 for an extended period in 2023.

Unfortunately, the reason behind this recent selling and buying of shares is not clear, but Bloomberg Intelligence ETF analyst Eric Balchunas explained that while others speculate it could be about ARK making room for ARKB, its Bitcoin ETF, it's all about maintaining a strategic investment position.

Balchunas reacted to several news articles reporting about ARK's sale of approximately 164,000 shares of Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC) last week. The ETF analyst said that it was not at all about the investment management firm being bullish on Bitcoin but more because of its "weightings history".

"Just saw another article on how ARK is selling GBTC and how that means they aren't really bullish btc and/or they making room for ARKB. Neither is true. With ARK you gotta look at weightings history before you begin your interpretation. FYI," Balchunas said.

GBTC witnessed a significant surge of 76% since August, and ARK needed to offload a substantial number of shares to maintain its allocation cap, which is floating at around 9%.

"Not defending ARK's btc predictions, but re its portfolio they like to sell winners (and vice-versa) to maintain desired weightings. Since $GBTC is up 76% since Aug so ARK *has* to sell many shares to keep a 9%-ish weighting. And even with that selling its weighting has gone up," the ETF analyst noted.