Circle Internet Group (CRCL) has had a rough few weeks. The stablecoin issuer’s stock closed at $61.95 on Wednesday, down over 38% in the past month. ARK Invest decided that was a buying opportunity.
Cathie Wood’s firm picked up 287,609 CRCL shares on Wednesday across three of its ETFs, valued at roughly $17.82 million at the closing price.
The largest chunk came from the ARK Innovation ETF (ARKK), which bought 210,343 shares. The ARK Next Generation Internet ETF (ARKW) added 53,846 shares, and the ARK Fintech Innovation ETF (ARKF) picked up the remaining 23,420.
The buying came after two brutal sessions for CRCL. The stock fell 14.15% on Tuesday before dropping another 1.09% on Wednesday to close at $61.95. That’s a 15% two-day slide.
The selling started after Circle was removed from three Russell growth indexes on June 26 during the annual Russell reconstitution. That meant index-tracking funds and passive investors had to offload the stock.
Circle was cut from the Russell 1000 Growth Index, the Russell 3000 Growth Index, and the Russell Midcap Growth Index. Forced selling from passive funds can hit a stock hard, and it did.
Then came another headwind. Open USD (OUSD), a new rival stablecoin, launched this week with backing from over 140 companies, including BlackRock, Coinbase, Ripple, Mastercard, and Visa. That puts direct competitive pressure on Circle’s USDC.
Circle isn’t sitting still. The company just announced a partnership with Standard Chartered that will allow institutional clients to mint and redeem USDC. That news helped CRCL bounce 4.25% to $64.58 in premarket trading on Thursday.
Despite the steep drop, analysts at Bernstein are sticking with a $190 price target on CRCL. That’s more than three times Wednesday’s closing price, suggesting the analyst community sees the selloff as overdone.
ARK’s purchase fits that view. Wood’s firm has been regularly adding crypto-related names to its portfolios, including Coinbase, Robinhood, and Bullish, alongside Circle.
On the same day, ARK also bought around 27,740 shares of Bullish (BLSH), worth approximately $700,000.
ARK also continued trimming its Alibaba (BABA) position, selling 79,632 shares worth about $7.81 million. That follows a string of recent Alibaba sales totaling tens of millions of dollars over the past week.
CRCL’s Momentum score currently sits in the 2nd percentile according to Benzinga Edge rankings, reflecting the recent price weakness.
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