Cathie Wood's Ark Invest stakes $21 million on Robinhood in portfolio moves

Cathie Wood’s Ark Invest has added more positions to its portfolio, purchasing $21.3 million worth of Robinhood Markets shares through two of its exchange-traded funds, according to a Wednesday disclosure.

The investment firm’s ARK Innovation ETF and ARK Next Generation Internet ETF collectively acquired 167,489 Robinhood shares. Based on Robinhood’s closing price of $127.22 per share, the total purchase is valued at roughly $21.3 million. 

Institutional sentiment toward Robinhood has been notably bullish in recent weeks, with options data from Nasdaq showing about 60% bullish activity on the stock.

Investors hope for strong results in the company’s upcoming earnings report scheduled for November 5. Moreover, economists expect Robinhood to post earnings of 51 cents per share and revenue of $1.19 billion for the quarter.

Cathie Wood’s Ark seeks to buff portfolio with trending stocks

The latest purchase by Cathie Wood’s investment firm expands its exposure to crypto and traditional financial companies operating at an intersection. Over the past year, Ark Invest has been increasing holdings in Robinhood, crypto exchange Bullish, Coinbase, and Ethereum treasury firm BitMine.

Ark’s ARK Innovation ETF (ARKK) currently holds 1,165,397 shares of Bullish, valued at approximately $73.85 million, according to its most recent disclosure. 

Cryptopolitan reported on August 19 that the financial firm added 356,346 Bullish shares to the ETF on August 19, in a purchase worth about $21.2 million when the stock closed at $59.51. The addition followed earlier allocations of more than 2.5 million Bullish shares across three Ark ETFs on the day of Bullish’s market debut.

Alongside the Robinhood and Bullish purchases, Ark Invest made several adjustments through its ETFs this week. The ARK Next Generation Internet ETF (ARKW) acquired 15,756 shares of Netflix, valued at roughly $17.6 million based on the streaming giant’s closing price of $1,116.37.

However, Cathie Wood’s company ETFs sold 44,909 shares of Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), a transaction worth about $10.3 million, and offloaded 23,768 shares of Palantir Technologies, valued at around $4.2 million.

Ark Invest also reduced a combined 111,849 shares of Roblox Corporation, with 63,870 shares sold from ARKK and 47,979 from ARKW. Additionally, it shed 55,255 shares of Roku Inc., and 32,274 shares of Shopify Inc. across both funds.

The Florida-based investment service provider might be drawn towards innovation-driven companies, but it currently appears to be rotating capital toward stocks it feels have a greater upside potential in the medium term.

Robinhood extends crypto footprint with acquisitions

The increased investment by Ark Invest is on the backdrop of Robinhood’s hunger to dip its foot in the global crypto market. In May, the brokerage acquired Toronto-based WonderFi for roughly $180 million to establish a foothold in the Canadian digital asset space.

A month later, Robinhood finalized its $200 million all-cash acquisition of Bitstamp, one of the world’s oldest crypto exchanges. The deal, which was initially announced in 2024, gives Robinhood access to more than 50 active crypto licenses in Europe, the United Kingdom, and Asia. 

“For us, it’s combining the strengths of the two businesses,” Johann Kerbrat, General Manager of Robinhood Crypto, told CNBC. 

“We are one of the largest retail marketplaces in the US. They have products that we don’t have, like order books, crypto as a service, advanced API, and lending and staking. Thanks to that, we will be able to get into this space without starting from scratch.”

Robinhood has also announced plans to develop its own Layer 2 blockchain built on the Arbitrum network to improve transaction efficiency and scalability for its users, while also placing the company as part of the most active TradFi entities in blockchain technology.

According to Google Finance data, Robinhood Markets Inc. closed Wednesday at $127.22, up 3.5% on the day, although it is still down 4.62% from recent highs. In US pre-market trading sessions on Thursday, the stock had climbed to $128.40, a 0.93% uptick from the previous close.

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