Two of Cathie Wood’s ARK ETFs purchased a combined 870,299 shares of DraftKings on Tuesday after the betting company experienced a dip in share price following a short-seller report from Hindenburg Research.
Wood’s Ark Innovation ETF purchased 688,702 shares, while Ark Next Generation Internet ETF purchased 181,597 shares, according to Business Insider. At closing, the combined stock was worth over $42 million.
DraftKings is the 17th-largest holding of the Ark Innovation ETF, and the 19th-largest holding of the Ark Next Generation Internet ETF.
“DraftKings’ stock came under pressure on Tuesday after the noted short-seller Hindenburg Research released a report detailing what they describe as “black market operations” at the fantasy sports and sports betting operator,” reported Business Insider. “While the stock fell as much as 12% on Tuesday, it recovered to end the day down just 4%. Now, DraftKings has received some much-needed analyst support.”
Cathie Wood is the founder and CEO of ARK Invest, which holds $29 billion in assets according to Forbes, investing in “innovations like self-driving cars and genomics.”
“After stints at other investment firms, Wood created ARK in 2014 hoping to package active stock portfolios in an ETF format,” Forbes explained. “Her flagship $8.6 billion (assets) Ark Innovation Fund has returned an average of nearly 40% annually over the past five years.”
“Wood studied economics at USC under Art Laffer, the inventor of the Laffer Curve, which theorizes the tie between tax rates and tax revenue,” Forbes added. “Wood is one of the biggest boosters of Elon Musk’s Tesla. She predicts the electric car company will someday be valued at over $1 trillion.”
“In some ways, Wood is an unlikely evangelist for change. She’s 65 and conservative, both politically and economically. For decades she’s championed green investments, but she rarely uses the terms ‘climate change’ or ‘clean energy,’” wrote Bloomberg. “After donating $1,000 to elect Donald Trump in 2016, she gave $25,000 to his presidential campaign and associated Republican political action committees in 2020, Federal Election Commission records show.”
According to Bloomberg, Wood has “bemoaned President Joe Biden’s plans to spend big and tax the wealthy,” warning that “higher taxes on companies and investors will discourage future innovation.”
Speaking in February 2019, Wood spoke of the importance of financial preparation in the event of a worldwide crisis.
“The best thing that can happen for us — and this is going to sound odd — is a crisis,” Wood said in February 2019, almost a year before the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. “It’s usually when innovation takes root and gains traction.”
“ARK defines ‘’disruptive innovation’’ as the introduction of a technologically enabled new product or service that potentially changes the way the world works,” explains ARK Invest’s website. Its “Top 10 Holdings” include Tesla (9.58%), Shopify (4.39%), and Coinbase (3.58%).