Cathie Wood's ETFs are now buying Tesla's stock

By Tomi Kilgore

The ARK Innovation ETF was previously a seller of Tesla stock, which is one of its largest holdings

Cathie Wood's ARK Innovation ETF is now buying Tesla Inc. stock, a reversal from its previous moves to trim its large stake in the electric-vehicle giant.

The high-profile investor's flagship ETF ARKK bought 93,965 shares of Tesla (TSLA) on Wednesday, which would be valued at $23.2 million at Wednesday's closing price of $247.14.

The purchase pushed Tesla's stock up to second among the Innovation ETF's holdings, with a weighting of 7.59%. That is still well below the top holding, which is Coinbase Global Inc.'s stock (COIN) at a weighting of 10.89%.

The ETF had previously been a seller of Tesla stock, back when the EV maker was the largest holding. In October, 245,197 Tesla shares were sold, with a market value of about $63.3 million, based on the closing prices of the days the shares were sold.

The Innovation ETF rallied 1.5% in premarket trading Thursday. It had dropped 4.1% on Wednesday, after closing Tuesday at the highest price since April 25, 2022.

The ETF has soared 63.3% year to date through Wednesday, to snap a two-year losing streak in which it fell a total of 74.9%. In comparison, the S&P 500 index SPX has rallied 22.4% this year, after gaining 2.2% over the past two years.

Also read: Cathie Wood's ARK Innovation is heading to a No. 1 finish for 2024, from Barron's.

Also on Wednesday, the Innovation ETF sold 132,782 shares of Coinbase, valued at about $21.5 million, and bought 133,003 shares of Zoom Video Communications Inc. (ZM) valued at $9.3 million.

And Wood's ARK Next Generation Internet ETF ARKW bought 17,422 Tesla shares, 24,899 shares of Zoom Video and 93,965 shares of Block Inc. (SQ) on Wednesday, while selling 16,998 Coinbase shares and 398,383 shares of Grayscale Bitcoin Trust GBTC.

That ETF's last trade in Tesla was a sale of 1,021 shares on Oct. 6.

Separately, the ARK Fintech Innovation ETF purchased 16,271 Meta Platforms Inc. shares (META), valued at $5.7 million.

-Tomi Kilgore

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12-21-23 0751ET

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