Cathie Wood Snaps Up $45M In Robinhood On Debut, Adds $73M In Twitter

Cathie Wood-led Ark Investment Management snapped over 1.29 million shares, estimated to be worth about $45.18 million, in Robinhood Markets Inc (NASDAQ: HOOD) on Thursday as the shares of the company key to the "stonk" revolution tanked on its trading debut.

Robinhood shares fell 8.37% to close at $34.82 on Thursday in the company’s first trading session and below its listing price.

As per a Bloomberg report, Robinhood staged the weakest IPO of its size since Uber Technologies Inc (NYSE: UBER) made a debut in May 2019.

A day ahead of the stock listing debut, Robinhood disclosed it has received inquiries from the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority and the Securities & Exchange Commission related to employee trading of so-called meme stocks and the FINRA registration of CEO Vlad Tenev.

Ark deployed Ark Innovation Fund (NYSE: ARKK) to buy the shares in Robinhood. 

The investment firm also snapped up over 1 million shares, estimated to be worth about $72.74 million, in Twitter Inc (NYSE: TWTR) further building up the stake after CEO Jack Dorsey told investors last week that apex cryptocurrency Bitcoin (CRYPTO: BTC) will be a “big part” of the social media company’s future.

Dorsey is also the founder of payments company Square Inc (NYSE: SQ), which is heavily invested in the apex cryptocurrency.

Twitter shares closed 0.61% higher at $70.37 on Thursday and were down 1.3% lower in extended hours.

Ark Invest deployed the two ETFs —  ARKK and the Ark Next Generation ETF (NYSE: ARKW) — to buy the shares in the San Francisco, California-based company. No other Ark ETF holds a stake in Twitter.

The recent buys have lifted Twitter’s position in ARKW to the second spot among a total of 50 stocks and the sixteenth-largest investment among a total of 50 stocks for ARKK.

The two ETFs together held over 11.98 million TWTR shares, worth about $838 million, as of Thursday.

Some of the other key Ark Invest buys on Thursday included Quantum-Si Inc (NASDAQ: QSI), and UiPath Inc (NYSE: PATH), and sells included Roku Inc (NASDAQ: ROKU). 

Photo: Courtesy of Robinhood