Cathie Wood Sells $31 Million In Coinbase Stock After Site Crashes Amidst Bitcoin Rally, Warren Buffet Warns Of 'Casino-Like' Behavior In Markets

Warren Buffet expressed his concern about the current state of markets. The Oracle of Omaha, reflecting on the volatility and speculation he sees today stated, “For whatever reasons, markets now exhibit far more casinolike behavior than they did when I was young."

Buffet has a famous maxim to be greedy when others are cautious and cautious when others are greedy. Is this an allusion to excess greed in the markets today?

Coinbase Goes Down

As Bitcoin BTC/USD hits an all-time high, traffic has exploded on Coinbase COIN, the largest crypto exchange in the US.

The increased traffic caused technical issues last Wednesday with many users experiencing bugs when buying or selling on the platform. Some users were even led to believe their wallets had been drained, seeing 0 balances despite not having withdrawn or transferred any funds.

"We are aware that some users may see a zero balance across their Coinbase accounts & may experience errors in buying or selling. Our team is investigating this & will provide an update shortly. Your assets are safe," Coinbase Support wrote.

COIN Sale

Cathie Wood, head of ARK Invest, sold roughly $31 million worth of COIN stock amidst the volatility. Despite the move, COIN is still ARK Innovation ETF's ARKK largest holding. It is also one of the few wins of Wood's major picks. 

ARKK also holds a significant stake in both Tesla Inc TSLA and Roku Inc ROKU. Both companies are struggling and their stocks have each fallen close to 30% this year. These picks, amidst some other misses, have led to ARKK losing close to 4% on the year, while the S&P 500 is up close to 7%.

For The Bears

For traders not buying what Wood is selling, inverse ETFs provide a straightforward way to bet against a stock, avoiding the complications that come with option trading. The AXS Short Innovation Daily ETF SARK, which aims to return the inverse performance of ARKK, is a perfect example.

Traders still bullish on Wood and her fund and want to maximize their view can buy a leveraged fund, like the AXS 2X Innovation ETF TARK which aims to return twice the daily return of ARKK. TARK was awarded Best ETF Launch at Benzinga's 2023 Fintech Awards.
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