Cathie Wood’s Ark Invest Sells Over 500,000 Shares of Apple

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By Douglas A. McIntyre Updated Published
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Cathie Wood’s Ark Invest Sells Over 500,000 Shares of Apple

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Two ARK exchange-traded funds run by ETF star Cathie Wood sold over 500,000 shares of Apple Inc (NASDAQ: AAPL | AAPL Price Prediction) shares yesterday, as the prices of those ETFs were basically flat. Each is up well over 100% in the last year.

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ARK Next Generation Internet ETF (NYSEARCA: ARKW) sold 460,102 Apple shares. ARK Autonomous Technology & Robotics ETF (NYSEARCA: ARKQ) sold 91,029. Each is a small fraction of the total holdings. ARKQ is up 120% in the last year. ARKW is up 149% over the same period.

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Yesterday, 24/7 Wall St. reported:

The journalistic search for Apple Inc. to find a manufacturing partner for a rumored Apple car has come full circle. South Korea’s Chosun Biz news outlet reported Friday morning that Apple and Hyundai Motor Group talks have not been completely scrapped. According to Chosun Biz’s source, “Even if the negotiations on electric vehicles fail, there are many items that can be negotiated in other fields, so we are still optimistic about the possibility of a partnership between the two sides.”

According to the report, Apple and Hyundai’s Kia division last year signed a memorandum of understanding “to promote collaboration in eight areas, including electric vehicles.” The unnamed source noted that while negotiations for an Apple Car are “experiencing difficulties, they have not completely collapsed.”

The report goes on to say that Apple and Kia have “similar strategic goals,” including last-mile services combined with the Internet of Things, autonomous vehicles and robot technology. While the term “last mile” usually refers to a delivery service that makes short trips from a warehouse directly to a business customer, in this case the term includes a short trip following a longer commute by another form of transportation (think scooters from the subway stop).

JPMorgan analyst Samik Chatterjee told clients in a note Thursday that demand for the iPhone 12 is slipping but that Apple’s smartphone shipments will still increase year over year in 2021. According to a report at AppleInsider, Chatterjee has lowered his sales forecast for the iPhone 12 series from 236 million to 230 million. The latter number represents a sales increase of 13%.

Chatterjee is among many analysts who believe Apple will discontinue the iPhone 12 mini in the second quarter due to weak sales of the small device. He also expects the company will make a “major cut” to shipments of the 12 Pro.

Weak consumer spending in China, along with a return to a more usual demand trend following the introduction of Apple’s 5G phones, are responsible for the lower forecast. Chatterjee has cut his estimate of March quarter shipments from 55 million to 52 million and raised his June quarter estimate from 36 million to 42 million units.

The lowered forecast is likely to cause a change of only about 1% to JPMorgan’s full-year earnings per share estimate for Apple, knocking the figure down from $4.65 to $4.60. Chatterjee sees the recent drop in Apple’s share price as a “broad acknowledgment of near-term underperformance” and that now investors’ attention should be focused on acquiring more Apple shares at these lower prices. Chatterjee has maintained his $150 price target on Apple stock.

Weak consumer spending in China, along with a return to a more usual demand trend following the introduction of Apple’s 5G phones, are responsible for the lower forecast. Chatterjee has cut his estimate of March quarter shipments from 55 million to 52 million and raised his June quarter estimate from 36 million to 42 million units.

The lowered forecast is likely to cause a change of only about 1% to JPMorgan’s full-year earnings per share estimate for Apple, knocking the figure down from $4.65 to $4.60. Chatterjee sees the recent drop in Apple’s share price as a “broad acknowledgment of near-term underperformance” and that now investors’ attention should be focused on acquiring more Apple shares at these lower prices. Chatterjee has maintained his $150 price target on Apple stock.

Apple said it has offered all the store’s employees other positions with the company and that the Apple Store in Lynnhaven Mall in nearby Virginia Beach will remain open to serve customers.

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About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.

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