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.” Reuters
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.
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. MSCI
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.
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.
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.
