• Wood challenges Hindenburg’s recent short report on Block as ‘wildly inaccurate’.
• She purchased more than 600,000 shares of the crypto company late last week.
• Block shares are down more than 30% from their year-to-date high at the time of writing.

Cathie Wood took a stand against Hindenburg Research’s short position in Block Inc (NYSE: SQ) last week, using the opportunity to increase her stake in the crypto company.

How many Block shares did she buy?

On Thursday, Wood’s exchange-traded funds bought 338,000 shares of Block Inc. She publicly criticized Hindenburg’s report as being “wildly misleading” and shared a Twitter thread from an Ark associate Maximilian Friedrich that reads:

All financial services companies, including banks, combat fraud, particularly during COVID – Square and Cash App are no exception, although the short report makes it sound like it.

Ark spent another $16 million to acquire 263,562 of Block shares, which are currently down more than 30% from their year-to-date high.

Wall Street is bullish on Block shares

Wall Street appears to be in agreement with Cathie Wood. The consensus rating on Block shares suggests analysts view Hindenburg’s claims as overblown. Ark’s Maximilian Friedrich also noted in his Twitter thread:

Though Cash App most likely was used for fraud during COVID, ironically, in this example, Cash App’s spending limits might have prevented the criminal from cashing out even more of the funds.

Wood also increased her stake in Coinbase last week following the crypto exchange’s receipt of a Wells notice from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission for potentially violating securities laws.

At the time of writing, Coinbase stock has dropped by 20% from its high at writing.