Cathie Wood's Ark Invest has been consistently accumulating shares of cryptocurrency exchange $Coinbase (COIN.US)$ ever since its public listing in April 2021.
What Happened: Despite the volatility seen this year, Wood's exchange-traded funds continued to bulk up on the shares. Most recently on Friday, the $ARK Innovation ETF (ARKK.US)$ and $ARK Next Generation Internet ETF (ARKW.US)$ combined bought 119,543 shares of Coinbase, valued at $7.7 million.
Since the start of the year, Ark, through its ETFs, has purchased about 1.2 million shares of Coinbase. At the average price for the year of about $57, the purchase is valued at $68.4 million.
Ark's current positions in Coinbase are as follows:
ARKK – 6.51 million shares and 5.61% weighting
ARKW – 1.44 million shares and 7.48% weighting
See Also: How To Buy Coinbase Stock
Is Coinbase A Buy: Coinbase has seen uneven trading in the year-to-date period, despite the broadly positive sentiment that prevailed in the broader market. After the cryptocurrency exchange's stock staged a recovery at the start of the year, concerns about the staking ban weighed down in early February.
Since then, Coinbase stock is seen consolidating in a range.
The average analysts' price target for Coinbase is $59.79, suggesting a little over 7% downside from current levels.
Coinbase's fortunes are largely tied to cryptocurrencies, and any downturn in cryptos could be a negative for the exchange as well. Following the release of Coinbase's fourth-quarter results, Raymond James analyst Patrick O'Shaughnessy pointed to risks stemming from the potential for significant regulatory action and substantial retail pricing compression.
Needham's John Todaro, however, sees Coinbase as an attractive way to play the growing crypto asset universe, which includes overlap in the high-growth areas of stablecoins, De-Fi, NFTs, borrow/lend applications, and yield farming.
Needham has a Buy rating and $73 price target for Coinbase, while Raymond James rates it an Underperform.
Coinbase closed Friday's session at $64.51, up 1.27%.