Cathie Wood's Ark is buying stock in space SPAC Rocket Lab

Cathie Wood’s Ark Invest is dipping back into a space SPAC, with two of the firm’s funds buying up stock in Rocket Lab the past two days.

Ark’s exchange-traded funds ARKQ and ARKX – which focus on autonomous technology and space exploration, respectively – bought about 729,000 shares of Rocket Lab in trades on Monday and Tuesday, the firm disclosed.

While Ark’s Rocket Lab position is relatively small, worth about $3 million total, the purchases mark the first recent space SPAC stock the firm has owned since selling its position in Virgin Galactic in May 2021.

Both ETFs also have significant positions in Iridium, a satellite communications company that went public via a SPAC deal in September 2009 – over a decade before the frenzy of space SPACs.

The purchases by Wood’s firm also follow Rocket Lab hosting an investor day in New York, where it gave updates on the progress of its Electron and Neutron rockets, as well as its space systems business

Rocket Lab stock was up 3% in trading on Wednesday from its previous close of $4.19 a share. Like many of its space SPAC peers, Rocket Lab shares have been hit hard of late, falling about 72% over the past 12 months.