NEW YORK, January 7, 2026, 11:08 EST — Regular session
- Strategy shares rise as MSCI delays excluding crypto-heavy treasury firms from key indexes
- MSCI plans a wider review of “non-operating” companies after investor feedback
- Strategy’s latest filing flagged a $17.44 billion Q4 unrealized loss tied to bitcoin
Strategy Inc shares rose 3.6% to $163.63 by 11:08 a.m. EST on Wednesday after MSCI shelved a plan that could have pushed the bitcoin-heavy company and other crypto treasury firms out of its indexes. “It removes a material near-term technical risk,” said Owen Lau, an analyst at Clear Street, while JonesTrading chief market strategist Mike O’Rourke said he suspected the issue was “postponed until later in the year.” 1
The call matters because MSCI’s benchmarks sit under a large pool of passive money, and an index exit can force funds to sell. MSCI had proposed excluding so-called digital asset treasury companies — firms whose digital asset holdings are 50% or more of total assets — but on Tuesday said it would keep the existing treatment for now, leaving Strategy in its global benchmarks through the February 2026 index review. 2
MSCI said it will open a broader consultation on how “non-operating” companies should be treated, arguing the indexes are meant to measure operating businesses and exclude entities that look investment-oriented. In the meantime, it said it would freeze certain index share-count and inclusion-factor changes for the preliminary list, and defer additions or size-segment moves for those securities. 3
Strategy, formerly MicroStrategy, has traded as a high-volatility proxy for bitcoin since it began buying the cryptocurrency in 2020, drawing both momentum traders and hedge funds looking for levered exposure.
A Jan. 5 filing showed Strategy had 673,783 bitcoins as of Jan. 4, after buying 1,283 bitcoins for about $116.0 million between Jan. 1 and Jan. 4, using proceeds from stock sold through its at-the-market program. 4
That same filing cycle underscored the downside of the trade: Strategy posted a $17.44 billion unrealized loss on digital assets for the fourth quarter, tied to the drop in the value of its crypto stockpile, and said it held a $2.25 billion U.S. dollar reserve used to support preferred dividends and interest payments. 5
Bitcoin fell 2.1% to about $91,407 on Wednesday, which helped cap gains in crypto-linked equities even as the MSCI headline eased one near-term overhang for Strategy.
Still, the MSCI reprieve is not a clean all-clear. The firm is explicitly reopening the question of whether these companies belong in broad equity indexes, and Strategy’s earnings can swing sharply under fair-value accounting that marks bitcoin holdings to market each period.
Investors now turn to two clocks: MSCI’s broader consultation process, and Strategy’s next quarterly report, which Nasdaq data estimates is due on February 4. 6
