Cathie Wood’s ARK Buys Tesla and Circle Amid Stock Crash

Cathie Wood’s ARK Invest spent nearly $60 million buying Tesla, Circle Internet Group and Securitize stock on Thursday, July 23, hours after oil, Treasury yields and the dollar all jumped and dragged the Nasdaq down more than 2%. The three purchases sit on opposite sides of the same interest rate story.

Tesla’s selloff is the kind rising yields are supposed to cause. Circle’s is not, because higher rates are, in theory, good for its core business. Wood bought both anyway, plus a smaller stake in tokenization platform Securitize, betting the whole basket recovers together.

Where ARK’s $60 Million Landed

Tesla was the biggest piece by far. ARK bought roughly $51.20 million of the stock across four of its exchange traded funds, using Thursday’s closing price of $319.69, a session in which the shares fell 14.52%.

The Tesla buying was spread across four separate ARK funds:

• ARKK (ARK Innovation ETF), Wood’s flagship fund, added 98,782 shares worth about $31.58 million.
• ARKQ (ARK Autonomous Technology and Robotics ETF) bought 30,396 shares worth roughly $9.72 million.
• ARKW (ARK Next Generation Internet ETF) purchased 21,048 shares worth about $6.73 million.
• ARKX (ARK Space Exploration and Innovation ETF) added 9,925 shares worth roughly $3.17 million.

ARK also added to Circle Internet Group, the stablecoin issuer behind USDC, buying about $8.09 million worth as the stock fell more than 6% to close at $62.18. A third, much smaller purchase went to Securitize Corp, where ARK’s fintech fund, ARKF, bought 48,377 shares worth about $353,152 as the stock dropped 4.82% to $7.30. Daily trade disclosures compiled by an account called Ark Invest Tracker showed every ARK trade from Thursday’s session within hours of the closing bell.

Oil, Yields and a Fed Hike Squeeze Wall Street

The buying happened as U.S. stocks took their worst hit in weeks. Brent crude oil rose above $101 a barrel overnight, and Treasury yields and the dollar climbed alongside it, all signs traders read as fresh inflation pressure heading into next week’s Federal Reserve meeting.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 506.93 points, or 0.97%, to 51,711.65. The Nasdaq Composite dropped 553.21 points, or 2.15%, to 25,137.69. The S&P 500 lost 90.66 points, or 1.21%, closing at 7,408.30. Technology names took the worst of it, including Tesla, Alphabet, Nvidia, Meta, Amazon and Oracle.

Joe Mazzola, head trading and derivatives strategist at Charles Schwab, tied the drop to a mixed batch of tech earnings. “Earnings were mostly positive for Alphabet and somewhat disappointing for Tesla. Alphabet raised spending forecasts and Tesla confirmed that 2026 remains a ‘massive’ spending year, giving chip firms a lift,” he said.

It wasn’t enough to overcome geopolitical headwinds, and worries intensified in the bond market, where the benchmark 10-year note yield posted a new 2026 high of 4.71%. In the background, chances of a Federal Reserve rate hike next week keep climbing as oil raises inflation concerns, reaching 38% according to the CME FedWatch Tool.

Mazzola made that assessment the same day, pointing to bond market stress as a bigger drag on sentiment than the earnings themselves.

Tesla’s Selloff Follows the Textbook

Tesla’s drop is the more familiar story. Tesla’s second quarter results, reported Wednesday, showed capital spending surging 142% to $5.79 billion, pushing the company to a free cash flow burn of $1.1 billion for the quarter, Yahoo Finance reported.

That is exactly the profile rising yields punish. Tesla’s valuation rests on profits investors expect years from now. The higher the rate used to discount those future earnings, the less they are worth today. When the 10-year yield hits a fresh high the same week Tesla says spending keeps climbing, the math works against the stock twice.

The same earnings call added a wrinkle. Asked about a possible Tesla-SpaceX tie-up, Elon Musk told analysts, “As you can tell from the many collaborations on so many fronts with SpaceX, there’s more and more overlap.” He added, “We can’t talk about, you know, combining companies and that kind of thing on an earnings call,” citing the need for an “appropriate process.”

What we know:

• Musk raised the subject of deeper Tesla-SpaceX ties unprompted on Wednesday’s call, describing “more and more overlap” between the companies.
• Tesla and SpaceX already share Terafab, a chip fabrication joint venture in Austin formed in March, and SpaceX completed its own stock market debut last month.

What’s unconfirmed:

• Whether a formal merger process has actually begun, or what shape a combined company would take.
• Any timeline. SpaceX reports its own results around August 4, the next likely moment Musk could address it further.

J.P. Morgan analyst Rajat Gupta wrote in a note that Musk had “pointed to a widening set of ties that collectively sketch the case for closer integration,” without confirming a deal was imminent.

Why Did Circle Stock Fall If Higher Rates Help It?

Circle’s stock fell alongside Tesla’s on Thursday even though its core business usually earns more when interest rates rise. Circle holds its USDC reserves in short-term Treasuries, and interest on those reserves generates most of its revenue, so a higher-rate environment tends to lift, not hurt, its earnings.

Circle’s first quarter 2026 results show how central that mechanism is. Reserve income grew 20% to $694 million, even as the reserve return rate itself slipped 66 basis points to 3.5%. Net income from continuing operations fell 15% to $55 million as costs rose.

Circle’s own risk disclosures spell out the mechanics. In its fluctuations in interest rates impact reserve income filing with securities regulators, the company cautions that the relationship between rates and how much USDC stays in circulation is “complex, highly uncertain, and unproven.”

That caveat matters this week. A broad flight from risk assets tied to inflation fear and recession worry drove Thursday’s selloff. That kind of selloff drags down richly valued growth names and reserve-driven stablecoin issuers alike, no matter which one actually stands to gain from the rate move behind it.

Securitize Carries ARK’s Longest Runway Bet

The smallest of Thursday’s three purchases points furthest into the future. Securitize is a tokenization platform that turns stocks, bonds and private equity into blockchain-based tokens, and it already has a history with ARK.

ARK’s venture-focused fund, ARK Venture Fund (ARKVX, a closed-end fund that holds both public and private companies), first disclosed a $10 million stake in Securitize in a filing dated September 30, 2025. That position equaled 3.25% of the fund’s $325.3 million in net assets at the time, making Securitize its eighth-largest holding, behind artificial intelligence firms X.AI and Anthropic.

Securitize’s institutional ties run deep. The company operates BlackRock’s tokenized BUIDL fund, which holds $2.8 billion in assets, and works with Hamilton Lane and Apollo on similar products. It has issued a cumulative $4.6 billion in tokenized securities.

Thursday’s purchase was a different, smaller thing: a direct, public-market buy of 48,377 shares through ARKF worth about $353,152 as the stock fell 4.82% to $7.30. Combined with Circle, it puts two of ARK’s three Thursday buys inside the same tokenized-finance thesis Wood has pursued since at least last September.

The Fed’s July 29 Decision Looms Over the Trade

ARK’s bet now has a clock on it. The Federal Reserve’s rate-setting committee holds a two-day meeting concluding July 29, with Chair Kevin Warsh due to announce the decision at 2 p.m. Eastern and take questions half an hour later.

The federal funds rate has held at 3.50% to 3.75% through multiple meetings this year as inflation has stayed above the Fed’s target. Mazzola’s 38% figure for a hike, pulled from the CME FedWatch Tool, would have sounded unlikely a few months ago. A hike, rather than a cut, has rarely been the live debate in this cycle.

A hike would tighten the exact discount-rate pressure that hit Tesla hardest this week, and it would deepen the broad risk-off mood already dragging down Circle and Securitize regardless of their own fundamentals. ARK’s basket needs the opposite: steady policy, calmer yields, and time for Circle’s and Securitize’s underlying businesses to matter more than the week’s headlines.

Frequently Asked Questions

How does ARK Invest disclose its daily trades?

ARK publishes the full list of trades across its exchange-traded funds after each trading session closes, a transparency practice unusual among large asset managers. That same-day disclosure is what let outside trackers compile Thursday’s complete tally of ARK’s buying within hours of the closing bell.

What other companies does ARK Venture Fund hold besides Securitize?

As of the fund’s September 2025 disclosure, Securitize ranked as the eighth-largest position in ARK Venture Fund, behind artificial intelligence firms X.AI and Anthropic, which held larger allocations of the fund’s then $325.3 million in net assets.

What is Securitize’s core business?

Securitize, founded in 2017 and led by chief executive Carlos Domingo, builds the compliance and infrastructure layer that lets banks and asset managers issue traditional securities as blockchain tokens rather than paper or book-entry records.

When does the Federal Reserve make its next rate decision?

The Federal Reserve’s policy statement is due July 29, 2026, at 2 p.m. Eastern. The committee’s April meeting produced an 8 to 4 dissent, the widest split among policymakers in more than three decades, a sign of how divided the Fed remains over inflation versus growth risk.

Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only and is not investment advice; equities and tokenization-linked shares carry real risk of loss, so consult a licensed financial adviser before trading, and note the figures above are accurate as of July 24, 2026.