Market watchers expressed surprise when Cathie Wood added thousands of Coinbase shares to her portfolio for the 6th month running, in spite of its tumbling value.
But now the CEO of Ark Invest has shared the reason behind her monthly purchases – “I forgot to cancel my subscription.”
She explained, “Coinbase had one of those tempting offers that you see – get the first month of shares free and simply cancel if you’re not happy. I got really excited about all the things I could do with Coinbase shares, but then of course life got in the way and I just didn’t use them. To make things worse, I then completely forgot to cancel my subscription. I thought I’d pinned a reminder on the fridge door but I must have scribbled a shopping list on it or something. I suppose that’s what these companies rely on. It wasn’t until I checked my bank statement six months later that I realised I’d bought 17.2 million shares in something that’s now worth a quarter of what I paid for it. Whoops. I asked for my money back but they told me to check the small print. Obviously, I hadn’t done that either.”
Wood admitted this isn’t the first time she’s let monthly subscriptions slip under her radar.
“I also got a tiny bit over-excited in the pandemic and signed up for share purchases in Peloton and Netflix. I mean, the Peloton thing was ridiculous – I forgot the day I was meant to cancel it by, then I forgot my log in details when I did remember to cancel it… in the end I found them in a pile of dusty paperwork on top of my actual Peloton bike which I had never used either. You’d think that would have been a clue not to buy shares in it, but no. I bought them at a high of $162 and months later sold them at a low of $7. Oopsie.”
“The one saving grace is that I have a joint account”, a relieved Wood explained. “If I didn’t have thousands of investors to share these losses with, I’d be kicking myself.”
Cathie Wood’s ARK Innovation ETF has fallen by 75% since February 2021. She is also the only person in America still receiving a monthly volume of an encyclopaedia on subscription.
