DraftKings rose Tuesday after DKNG stock received an upgrade from JPMorgan Chase. Meanwhile, ARK Invest Chief Executive Cathie Wood appears to be steadily taking profits on the sports gambling platform throughout September.
JPMorgan upgraded DKNG stock to overweight from neutral and hoisted its price target to 36 from 26 early Tuesday. Analyst Joseph Greff suggested taking advantage of DraftKings' roughly 13% pullback since late July.
Gambling continues to be "an appealing sector," Greff said in a note to clients, "with attractive same-store and new market growth prospects, against the backdrop of an industrywide improving operating expense control environment."
Further, Greff believes DraftKings has a "strong moat" that should allow it to compete against new names like ESPN Bet, which is licensed to PENN Entertainment, and Fanatics, similar to how it competed against Caesars, according to the research note.
Cathie Wood, ARK Cash In
Meanwhile, Cathie Wood's ARK Invest has steadily been selling DraftKings stock throughout September, according to daily trade updates.
ARK Invest sold a total of 1,525,098 DraftKings shares across its ARK Innovation ETF, ARK Next Generation Internet ETF and ARK Fintech Innovation ETF on six different occasions starting Sept. 11. The firm made about $46.66 million on the DKNG stock sales, based on the various closing prices throughout the month.
Wood's firm still holds more than $265.11 million worth of DraftKings stock in ARKK, representing 3.93% of the ETF as of Sept 26.
Meanwhile, ARKW holds $51.79 million worth of shares, representing 4.21% of the total fund. And ARK holds $54.88 million in DraftKings stock in the ARKF ETF, accounting for 6.76% of the fund as of Tuesday morning.
DraftKings Stock
DraftKings jumped 3.9% Wednesday after climbing 2% Tuesday on the JPMorgan upgrade. DKNG stock fell below its 50-day moving average on Sept. 21 after slipping below its 10-day line on Sept. 19. Wednesday's gain pushed shares within 2.4% of their 50-day line. DraftKings is down 2.9% for the month through Wednesday's close.
Still, DKNG stock has soared nearly 155% thus far in 2023. In August, the Boston, Mass.-based company posted its first quarterly profit with its second-quarter results, and expects up to 58% revenue growth for the year.
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