Cathie Wood Augments Palantir Stake By Whopping $16.5M, Unperturbed By Analyst Downgrading Stock To 'Sell'

Palantir Technologies, Inc. PLTR shares pulled back on Friday after an analyst downgraded the stock, and Cathie Wood’s Ark Invest used the weakness as a buying opportunity.

What Happened: Ark Invest’s flagship exchange-traded fund, the Ark Innovation ETF ARKK on Friday bought 777,143 shares of Palantir, and the firm’s Ark Next Generation Internet ETF ARKW and Ark Fintech Innovation ETF ARKF added 153,662 shares and 100,802 shares, respectively, daily trade disclosure from the firm showed.

Palantir ended Friday’s session down 1.66% at $15.98, according to Benzinga Pro data. At the price, Ark’s total purchases of 1,031,607 Palantir shares are valued at $16.49 million.

See Also: Best Artificial Intelligence Stocks

Friday, Jefferies analyst Brent Thill downgraded Palantir shares from “Neutral” to “Underperform,” and the analyst also reduced the price target from $18 to $13, suggesting roughly 19% downside from current levels.

The analyst predicated the action on his view that the stock has rallied to unsustainable levels while riding on the AI fervor, even as it lacks a credible monetization strategy and has experienced a slow demand recovery in its commercial and government businesses in 2024.

Coinbase Liquidation Continues: Ark continued its Coinbase Global, Inc. COIN selling spree as it sold another chunk of shares of the cryptocurrency exchange Friday.

ARKK, ARKW and ARKF, together, liquidated 133,823 shares of Coinbase valued at $20.61 million (based on the stock’s closing price of $153.98). The Wood-led firm’s Coinbase selling spree is attributed mainly to profit taking as it had accumulated the stock for most of 2022 and in early 2023.

Read Next: Cathie Wood’s Ark Stays Bullish On Tesla Despite Short-Term ‘Growing Pains’ As EV Maker ‘Years Ahead’ Of Rivals

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