Wall Street investment bank JPMorgan (JPM) said Strategy’s (MSTR) steep underperformance relative to bitcoin in recent months has far more to do with looming index-inclusion risk than with crypto-market dynamics.
Strategy’s once-inflated premium over its bitcoin holdings has largely evaporated, but the more recent slide reflects growing anxiety that index provider MSCI may remove the company from key equity indices when it issues its Jan. 15 ruling, the bank said in a Wednesday report.
The company founded by Michael Saylor currently sits in major benchmarks including the Nasdaq 100, MSCI USA and MSCI World, the report noted.
Of its roughly $59 billion market capitalization, about $9 billion sits in passive vehicles, exchange-traded funds (ETFs) and mutual funds that track these indices, analysts led by Nikolaos Panigirtzoglou wrote.
This embedded presence has allowed bitcoin exposure to seep indirectly into both retail and institutional portfolios, a dynamic the analysts said could sharply reverse if MSCI ejects Strategy and other firms that rely on digital assets as core treasury holdings.
Removal from MSCI alone could drive roughly $2.8 billion in passive outflows, with as much as $8.8 billion at risk if other index providers follow suit, according to the analysts.
While active managers aren’t obligated to mirror benchmark changes, the bank's analysts argued that losing major index status would deal a reputational blow, raising doubts about Strategy’s ability to tap equity and debt markets. Lower index-linked activity could also thin liquidity, making the stock less appealing to large institutional investors.
Strategy’s combined market value across equity, debt and preferreds relative to its bitcoin holdings has already fallen to the lowest level since the pandemic. A negative ruling on Jan. 15, the bank warned, would push that ratio even closer to one, effectively tethering the company’s valuation almost entirely to its bitcoin stack.
The shares were 3.5% higher in pre-market trading, around $193.
Read more: Strategy Returns to Large Bitcoin Buys, Adding $835M Last Week
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