ARK Invest bought nearly 3.3 million shares of SpaceX (SPCX) when Elon Musk’s company went public in the largest IPO ever on Friday, building a stake of more than $500 million by the end of the day.
The shares, priced at $135 for the sale, closed at $160.95, up more than 19.2% in their first day.
The Cathie Wood-owned company liquidated nearly $280 million of shares in the week before the IPO, then sold another roughly 948,000 shares across 13 companies worth at least $48 million on Friday, including Advanced Micro Devices, Roku and Baidu, according to daily emailed statements during the period.
The ARK Innovation ETF (ARKK) made the bulk of the buying, ending the day with SpaceX at 3.28% of its portfolio.
A first-day pop of nearly 20% on the largest IPO in history signals that institutions are once again paying for high-beta innovation risk. While bitcoin is the highest beta asset of the group, the hottest trade in the market now is a wave of artificial intelligence and space listings, with OpenAI and Anthropic also looking to go public.
