Virgin Galactic’s spacecraft Unity will land during a test flight on May 1, 2020.
Virgin Galactic
Virgin Galactic shares traded Tuesday after Ark Invest’s space exploration ETF sold nearly half of its stake in the space tourism company.
Cathie Wood’s firm on Monday sold 275,204 shares of Virgin Galactic from its ARKX fund, reducing the ETF’s shares from 585,675 shares to 315,781 shares. Of the 39 ARKX shares, Virgin Galactic was the 19th largest, but it is now at 33rd, accounting for just over 1% of the fund’s weight.
Ark Invest also sold 315,600 shares of Virgin Galactic from its ARKQ fund “autonomous technology and robotics” on Monday. The Ark ETF retains a larger stake in Virgin Galactic, with 1.76 million shares. Together, ARKX and ARKQ hold a $ 46.7 million stake in Virgin Galactic shares from yesterday’s closing price.
Virgin Galactic’s share traded up 7% compared to its previous discount of $ 22.46 per share and dropped to as much as 10% earlier in the day.
Wood’s new space ETF only started trading late last month, and many investors believed Virgin would be a leading position for the fund, as it was one of the first listed exchanges in the industry. However, ARKX continues to focus on GPS-based services company Trimble, another Ark Invest fund PRNT, and a variety of aviation and defense contractors, including Kratos, L3Harris, Komatsu, Lockheed Martin, Thales and Boeing. The largest pure gaming space in ARKX is the satellite operator Iridium Communications.
Virgin Galactic’s stock wiped out its earnings in 2021 last week, after more than doubling to more than $ 60 a share in February. The losses have accelerated in the past month following delays in the test program and commercial flights, as well as the sale of shares by chairman Chamath Palihapitiya and then-founder Richard Branson.