Wednesday's crypto crash and falling prices on former market darlings were a potent one-two combo to get Cathie Wood buying. The popular money manager took advantage of the market's dip to add to some of her biggest names across ARK Invest's widely followed exchange-traded funds (ETFs).
Coinbase (COIN 2.01%), Tesla (TSLA -3.55%), and Square (SQ -1.97%) stand out among her purchases on Wednesday. She added more shares of the fast-growing companies to at least two of her six ETFs. Let's see why she may be on to something with all three stocks.
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Coinbase
Wood was defending the long-term potential of Bitcoin on Wednesday as the crypto crash was happening, so it's not a surprise to see her adding to Coinbase. The leading cryptocurrency marketplace naturally took a hit as the digital currencies it specializes in moved sharply lower. Adding insult to injury, the Coinbase site was down for chunks of time on Wednesday morning as traders were looking to either cash out or take advantage of the lower price points.
Coinbase stock would tumble 13% to bottom out at $208 -- an all-time low for a stock that has only been public for a month -- but recovered a little more than half of its intraday losses to close just 6% lower. The crypto market itself took a bigger hit, but that does make sense. The negative sentiment that started with Telsa CEO Elon Musk dissing Bitcoin a week ago is generating a spike in trading activity, and that's ultimately good for Coinbase. This will naturally become a bigger problem for Coinbase if crypto doesn't bounce back, but that could also be a mixed blessing if that keeps new competitors away or a trading fee price war from breaking out.
Tesla
Wood apparently didn't take Musk's rant on Bitcoin as an energy hog personally. Tesla is the largest holding across her combined ETFs, and she nabbed a bit more of the electric car maker for three of them on Wednesday.
Tesla stock enters Thursday trading 37% below the all-time high it hit in January. Tesla has become a popular short with so many automakers pushing out electric vehicles, but it seems a bit misguided. None of them will have the proprietary fleet of charging stations that is the equivalent of selling a traditional car and owning every gas station the driver will ever need. Tesla's getting a lot of heat because its "Full Self Driving" upgrade isn't exactly full self driving just yet, but what is now a $10,000 digital accessory for new buyers is still well ahead of the competition in the race for autonomous driving. The stock wasn't cheap after last year's run, but the recent sell-off seems overdone at this point given Tesla's pole position in electric vehicles and the aspirational nature of its brand.
Square
Finally, Wood put some more money into a company that knows all about moving money around. Square is a leading payment platform. It's also been an early pioneer in crypto, and that may explain why the shares opened 5% lower on Wednesday before making back more than half of the initial hit by the end of the trading day.
Square has been on a growth tear lately, with sharply accelerating year-over-year top-line growth for five consecutive quarters. Revenue soared 266% in its latest report, a big step up from the 41% growth it was posting six quarters ago. Bitcoin trading through Square's Cash App was a major contributor to the monster quarter, but there's a lot more going for the digital payments platform than just crypto.
Wood isn't afraid to buy on the dip if a company's bullish thesis remains strong. Right now it seems as if Coinbase, Tesla, and Square are still worth buying.
