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- Cathie Wood's Ark bought the dip in Palantir shares this week, when the data-analytics company hit 3-month lows.
- Funds managed by Ark Invest picked up 1.25 million Palantir shares, according to a company trading update.
- Palantir fell 7.13% to close at $22.52 on Wednesday, after lowering its fourth-quarter guidance the day before.
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Cathie Wood's Ark Invest bought more than $28 million worth of Palantir Technologies stock, taking advantage of a price drop after the company disappointed analysts with its outlook on profit margins.
Three Ark-managed ETFs – ARK Innovation, ARK Autonomous Tech. & Robotics and ARK Next Generation Internet – loaded up a total 1.25 million Palantir shares on Wednesday, according to a company trading update.
Palantir said Tuesday it expects profit margins of 22% in the fourth quarter, lower than the 24% analysts expected and below the 30% for the previous quarter. The outlook cast a shadow over its strong third-quarter earnings report.
The data-analytics company's stock closed Wednesday down 7% at $22.52, its lowest level since August. It rose 1.7% to $22.90 as of Thursday morning, according to Yahoo data.
In its earnings release, Palantir said third-quarter revenue grew 36% year-over-year to $392 million, topping Wall Street estimates. It said it expects fourth-quarter revenue of $418 million, above analyst estimates, and lifted full-year revenue-rise guidance to 40% from 30%.
Woods had already built a near $1 billion stake in Palantir stock across most of its ETFs before buying the dip. In an interview with CNBC in January, she laid out the thinking behind investing in the stock.
"They're certainly garnering a lot of business, which tells us that they are seeing in the future, and investing in the future, in ways that companies - governments, but increasingly companies - are going to need, especially as we're competing against China," Wood said at the time.
"Palantir's attitude is refreshing. It's exactly how we invest. We want our companies to invest aggressively. We don't want profits now. We want them to invest aggressively, because we're moving into many winner-take-most markets."
In October, Palantir said it would give 10 more startups access to its services via a subscription, to give them more knowledge of its platform. This was part of Palantir's Foundry for Builders initiative, introduced in July.