Cathie Wood’s ARK Invest loaded up on shares of stablecoin issuer Circle Internet Group (NYSE: CRCL) and Elon Musk’s SpaceX (NASDAQ: SPCX) on Wednesday, August 5, hours after both companies posted their second-quarter results.
According to the firm’s daily trade disclosure, ARK bought 273,343 CRCL shares across three of its exchange-traded funds. The ARK Innovation ETF (ARKK) picked up 194,333 shares, the ARK Next Generation Internet ETF (ARKW) added 55,135 shares, and the ARK Fintech Innovation ETF (ARKF) took 23,875 shares.
Circle stock closed the session largely flat at $63.28, edging up 0.05% on the day, according to Yahoo Finance data. At that closing price, ARK’s purchase is worth roughly $17.3 million.
Circle is currently the ninth-largest holding in ARKK, carrying a weight of 3.68% and a value of about $223.4 million, based on the firm’s public holdings data. ARK’s investment mandate caps any single position at 10% of a fund’s portfolio to maintain diversification across its ETFs.
The Cathie Wood-led investment manager typically adds to positions on weakness. Its previous CRCL buy came on July 31, when it picked up 109,129 shares worth roughly $6.83 million after the stablecoin firm secured its New York trust charter approval.
Circle Q2 misses on revenue, USDC volume surges 151%
Circle disclosed its second-quarter financial results on Wednesday before the market opened. The company reported total revenue and reserve income of $701 million, a 7% year-on-year increase that fell short of the Wall Street consensus of about $713 million, according to analyst estimates compiled by Yahoo Finance.
Adjusted EBITDA rose 8% to $143 million, while net income from continuing operations came in at $48 million, a $530 million swing from the year-ago quarter that was weighed down by IPO-related stock-based compensation charges.
USDC in circulation ended the quarter at $73.3 billion, up 19% year-over-year, while onchain transaction volume reached $14.8 trillion, a 151% jump from the same period last year. Circle minted $83 billion of USDC and redeemed $87 billion during the quarter, according to the earnings release.
On the earnings call, the firm reiterated that its Arc Layer-1 blockchain will go live on public mainnet on September 16, with BlackRock, DTCC, Visa, and Mastercard listed among the founding validators.
ARK adds $19.7M in SpaceX after 13% plunge
On the same day, ARK also purchased 181,830 shares of SpaceX across four of its ETFs. The buy was split between ARKK (104,008 shares), ARK Autonomous Technology & Robotics ETF (ARKQ, 34,251 shares), ARKW (29,510 shares), and ARK Space & Defense Innovation ETF (ARKX, 14,061 shares).
SPCX shares tumbled 13.61% on Wednesday to close at $108.27, well below the $135 IPO price set in June, according to Google Finance data. That values ARK’s new SpaceX position at roughly $19.7 million.
The selloff came despite SpaceX beating expectations in its first-ever quarterly print as a public company. The rocket maker reported Q2 revenue of $7.8 billion, up 92% year-on-year, clearing analyst estimates of $6.8 billion polled by FactSet. Net loss narrowed to $541 million from $1 billion a year earlier, and adjusted EBITDA jumped 191% to $3.5 billion.
Investors instead fixated on the capital expenditure line. SpaceX spent $18.4 billion during the quarter, nearly six times the year-ago figure and almost double the $10.1 billion recorded in Q1. Roughly $16 billion of that was directed at AI compute infrastructure, according to the company’s earnings commentary reported by Fortune.
Adding to the pressure, the first insider lock-up tranche following SpaceX’s June IPO expires on August 6, unlocking up to 20% of restricted holdings, according to the company’s S-1 filing.
Musk brings forward $1 trillion revenue target
On the earnings call, Elon Musk told investors that SpaceX’s internal projection to hit $1 trillion in annual revenue has moved forward to 2030, from a previous target of 2031, with what he described as “a non-zero chance” of reaching that figure by 2029.
SpaceX Chief Financial Officer Bret Johnson said the company remains on track to hit a $100 billion annualized revenue run rate by December, driven by cloud contracts, growth in Starlink subscribers (which doubled to 12 million during the quarter), and the pending acquisition of coding firm Cursor.
ARK has consistently added to its SpaceX position since the rocket maker’s June 12 Nasdaq debut. The firm spent roughly $444 million on the day of the IPO alone and has now deployed more than half a billion dollars into the stock across public disclosures, making SPCX one of its highest-conviction holdings. In late July, ARK added another $20.5 million worth of SPCX shares as the stock traded near its post-IPO lows.
For CRCL, ARK’s buying activity has picked up again since Circle received its national trust bank charter from the U.S. Office of the Comptroller of the Currency in July, followed by a New York limited-purpose trust approval. The firm also purchased $5.5 million of Circle stock on May 12 following the company’s Q1 report, and a further $16.3 million on March 24.
Also Read: Cathie Wood’s ARK Invest Buys $9.4M in Coinbase and Circle, Dumps $33M of Roblox & AMD
