Cathie Wood dumps 1.4 million Coinbase shares after SEC probe

Yahoo Finance's Alexandra Semenova discusses Ark Invest founder Cathie Wood offloading Coinbase stock.

Video transcript

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AKIKO FUJITA: Well, the SEC's investigation into Coinbase appears to have rattled Cathie Wood. The longtime Coinbase backer selling over 1 million shares in the company for the first time this year. Our very own Alexandra Semenova here with me at the desk. I'm gonna just call you the Cathie Watcher. You're always--

ALEXANDRA SEMENOVA: Yeah, I basically am--

AKIKO FUJITA: --checking her portfolio.

ALEXANDRA SEMENOVA: --at this point, always keeping up with what she does. Yesterday, three funds across Ark sold 1.4 million shares of Coinbase worth about $75 million as of yesterday's close. The lion's share of that came from her flagship ARK Innovation ETF. And this, of course, came after Coinbase lost about a fifth of its market value yesterday following news about the SEC probe, bringing total losses down to 80% year to date.

And important to note that Ark has been selling Coinbase at all-time lows. It has been purchasing the stock at an average price of $255 a share, selling it yesterday at $53 a share. So locking in really tremendous losses there. And it was also the third largest holder of the company as of the end of last month.

This is obviously a big statement about Cathie Wood's confidence in the company because she has been a big crypto bull, a big proponent of Coinbase, steadily buying up shares even during the worst of days of its selloff. So now that she's kind of parting ways with Coinbase, it says a lot about what she sees about the company, though, notably, as she sold Coinbase, she bought up shares of Shopify, of course, after the 14% selloff yesterday. Very on brand for Wood to be buying the dip.

AKIKO FUJITA: Yeah, buying the dip and Shopify getting a bounce after, although we saw a significant decline yesterday. We've also been seeing a bit of a pop here in semiconductors led by Texas Instruments today.

ALEXANDRA SEMENOVA: Yeah, semiconductors also in the spotlight today following the report of the earnings report yesterday from Texas Instruments. What was particularly notable to investors was the guidance that they put out countering some of the recessionary fears that some people had about the chip industry.

We are seeing shares of companies like Qualcomm and Intel up as much as 2% today. The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index was down about 30% year to date, of course, amid growing bearishness-- bearishness-- bearishness-- sorry-- over the industry and supply chain issues, all the worries of an economic slowdown, and a slowdown from the big boom in chips.

AKIKO FUJITA: Well, and Texas Instruments also expected to get a big bump, one of the big beneficiaries of the CHIPS+ bill if, in fact, it does pass the Senate, goes over to the House. All right, here's a story that you can probably relate to, you, too, as well. Flying has undoubtedly become tougher this summer with ongoing delays and cancellations. Flight tracker site FlightAware has a list of the worst flight delays at the world's busiest airport.

So let's take a look at the list here. Toronto Pearson at the very top of the list. Montreal, Frankfurt, Paris, as well as Lisbon. In terms of US airports, Chicago Midway, Orlando, JFK, Newark, sort of, and Baltimore rounding out the top US airports that have had the worst delays. I will tell you, I recently flew through Toronto. It was like-- you hear so many horror stories there about people being stranded. A little terrifying. My delay was not as bad. But certainly people-- some people who had to stay out there overnight because their flights were canceled.

ALEXANDRA SEMENOVA: Yeah, and a lot of the European airports also leading the list. I've heard anecdotally from friends who are traveling to Europe now that they're experiencing really nightmarish delays, having to stay at airports overnight, not being able to book new flights. I personally was at the airport in Paris about six weeks ago. And the line there was just-- it took up so much time. Going through TSA was a nightmare. Really, really hitting there.

AKIKO FUJITA: Yeah, I mean, staff shortages certainly playing into that as well. The US, we have seen some improvements on that front. Can we show the top five again? I was going to say, I'm a little surprised that Heathrow is not on that list, or maybe it was. I've been hearing about a lot of the delays over there.

ALEXANDRA SEMENOVA: Another interesting thing that I read was that apparently people are so worried about losing their luggage that they're taking liquids on to the flights with them. And that's worsening the delays because as they're going through the checks--

AKIKO FUJITA: Through the [INAUDIBLE] security.

ALEXANDRA SEMENOVA: Yeah.

AKIKO FUJITA: Yeah, I mean, this is also the busiest time of year to travel, the summer travel there, so certainly becoming less and less pleasant, I would say. All right, Alexandra Semenova, appreciate you joining me at the desk here.