Cathie Wood bought nearly $20 million of SpaceX (SPCX) as it crashed 13.6%. She hasn't sold a share since June.

The week SpaceX (SPCX) came apart, Cathie Wood was buying. On Aug. 5, as the stock fell 13.6% to close at $108.27, her firm ARK Invest bought 181,830 shares across four of its ETFs, about $20 million worth, and sold three other holdings to pay for it. Two sessions later SPCX trades near $125.

The drop wasn't about the business. SpaceX beat every line in its first quarter as a public company, then fell on an $18.37 billion capital-spending bill and the 911.5 million shares that unlocked Aug. 6. Wood spent the whole slide adding to the position.

The buying goes back months. ARK has put more than $475 million into SpaceX since the June listing, and it has yet to sell a single share from its public funds. Wood has called it a company that could become the "most important company in history." The Aug. 5 buy came on one of the stock's steepest one-day drops since it listed in June.

The buying has reshaped what ARK owns. SpaceX is now the top holding in the ARK Space Exploration & Innovation ETF (ARKX), at about 7.7%. To make room on Aug. 5, ARK trimmed Roblox by $17.3 million, Palantir (PLTR) by $11.4 million and Shopify by $11 million. It bought another 20,318 shares, about $2.3 million, the next morning.

Should you follow her into SpaceX?

Not everyone thinks it's a trade worth copying. The Motley Fool framed the buy as a choice between "calling the bottom or catching a falling knife," and one of its columnists wrote plainly that he wouldn't copy it. The case for caution is the spending itself. That $18.37 billion of quarterly capital expenditure is more than five times the $3.54 billion in adjusted EBITDA SpaceX reported for the same three months, and the bears' point is that nobody can say yet what that spending earns, or when.

For now the tape is going Wood's way. SPCX closed at $114.92 on Aug. 6 and traded near $125 by midday Aug. 7, up about 16% from ARK's $108.27 entry. The stock is still down more than a third from its June 16 close of $201.80, so two green sessions haven't undone the slide she bought into.

The rest of the Street sits closer to Wood than to the skeptics on direction, if not on size. The consensus across two dozen analysts is Buy, with an average target near $223 and a low around $62. ARK files its trades after every close, so if it keeps buying the dip, the next morning's disclosure will show it.

This is general market commentary and opinion, not investment advice. Markets can go down as well as up, and you can lose money. Always do your own research and consider speaking with a licensed financial professional before making any investment decision.

Sources

• ARK Invest daily trade disclosures via Investing.com, Seeking Alpha and CryptoTimes: 181,830 SPCX shares bought Aug. 5, 2026 across ARKK, ARKQ, ARKW and ARKX, worth about $19.7 million at the day's $108.27 close (some outlets valued the same buy at $22.8 million using the prior session's price), funded by trims to Roblox ($17.3M), Palantir ($11.4M) and Shopify ($11M); a further 20,318 shares (about $2.3 million) on Aug. 6; more than $475 million invested in SpaceX since the June 2026 IPO with no reported sales; SpaceX the top holding in ARKX at about 7.7%.
• Cathie Wood comment that SpaceX could become the "most important company in history," ARK Invest, 2026.
• SpaceX second quarter 2026 capital expenditure of $18.37 billion against adjusted EBITDA of $3.54 billion, per company results Aug. 4, 2026. Covered in our earnings piece.
• Prices from live market data: SPCX close of $108.27 on Aug. 5, $114.92 on Aug. 6, and near $125 at midday Aug. 7, 2026, against a June 16 close of $201.80. Analyst consensus Buy with an average target near $223 and a low around $62, per Investing.com.