ARK Buys Another Seven Million Skillz Shares in Just Three Days

It s in a now-lengthy slump. But Skillz (NYSE:SKLZ) stock has friends in high places namely, Cathie Wood s ARK Investment Management.

In just the past three trading days, the New York-based money manager and exchange traded funds (ETFs) issuer scooped up approximately seven million shares of the mobile games developer, adding to what s already stakes in the newly public company.

Today, Wood s firm bought 1.96 million Skillz shares for the ARK Innovation ETF (NYSEARCA:ARKK) — the issuer s biggest ETF and 1.16 million shares of the stock for the ARK Next Generation ETF (NYSEARCA:ARKW).

Those buys came a day after San Francisco-based Skillz reported first-quarter results. While the company boosted full-year revenue guidance , the stock tumbled 8.73 percent today on heavy volume, as investors fretted about a wider-than-expected loss in the first three months of the year, and rising customer acquisition costs.

Wednesday s activity in Skillz by ARK comes after the fund manager bought big in the embattled gaming name on the prior day.

Yesterday, the ETF issuer gobbled up 2.71 million Skillz shares for the ARK Innovation ETF, while adding another 354,633 shares to the aforementioned internet ETF. So in the span of two days, Wood s firm added approximately 6.2 million shares of Skillz to two of its ETFs. ARKW to own Skillz shares in quantity. On Monday, ARK bought almost 721,000 Skillz shares for the innovation ETF.

ARK is buying Skillz stock on weakness. The shares are off almost 17 percent over just the past week, 18.65 percent over the past month, and down 66.56 percent from the March highs. From today s close at $15.48, Skillz needs to essentially triple to reclaim its all-time high at $46.30.

ARK now owns 10.47 million shares of Skillz in ARKK and another 8.16 million shares in ARKW, likely making the fund manager the second-largest shareholder, based on the most recent filing data.

While ARK s Skillz purchases appear ill-advised, particularly with the stock under siege from recent research by a trio of bearish researchers, Wood is famous for saying her firm takes a long view of hyper-growth stocks, often up to five years.

It s a strategy that s paid off handsomely for ARK investors, as the firm nailed staggering returns on iconic growth stocks such as Roku, Square, and Tesla, among others.

Speaking of buying slumping gaming equities, ARK bought roughly 728,000 shares of DraftKings today, spread across ARKK and ARKW. That followed the purchase of nearly 577,000 shares of the sportsbook operator for ARKK on Tuesday

ARK owns across three of its ETFs.