Cathie Wood grills Hindenburg and buys Block shares

• Wood says Hindenburg’s recent short report on Block was ‘wildly misleading’.
• She bought more than 600,000 shares of the crypto company late last week.
• Block shares are down well over 30% versus their year-to-date high at writing.

Block Inc (NYSE: SQ) was hit hard last week after Hindenburg Research revealed a short position in the crypto company – a sell-off that Cathie Wood saw as an opportunity to expand her exposure to this stock.

How many Block shares did she buy?

On Thursday, the influential investor mobilized three of her exchange-traded funds to load up on 338,000 shares of Block Inc.

She grilled the short seller for “wildly misleading” investors as she shared a Twitter thread from an Ark associate Maximilian Friedrich that reads:

All financial services companies, including banks, encounter and combat fraud, especially during COVID – Square and Cash App are no exception, although the short report makes it sound like it.

Ark spent $16 million to purchase another 263,562 of Block shares that are now down well over 30% versus their year-to-date high.

Wall Street is bullish on Block shares

Wall Street appears to be siding with Cathie Wood as well. The consensus overweight rating on Block shares suggests analysts view Hindenburg’s concerns broadly as overblown. Ark’s Maximilian Friedrich also noted in his Twitter thread:

While Cash App likely was used for fraud during COVID, ironically, in this example, Cash App’s spending limits might have prevented the criminal to cash out even more of the funds.

Wood also increased her stake in Coinbase late last week after the crypto exchange confirmed that it received a Wells notice from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission for potentially violating securities laws.

At writing, Coinbase stock is down 20% versus its high at writing.