MSCI Decides Strategy's Index Fate Today After Draft List Flags It for Removal

MSCI is set to announce on Wednesday night whether Strategy remains in its major global stock benchmarks. The index firm's own preliminary list already tagged the biggest corporate holder of bitcoin as Deleted.

The index provider's November 2026 Index Review lands just after 5 p.m. ET. On Oct. 15, MSCI had disclosed that this review would contain the definitive roster of existing members affected by the updated screening, with deletions applying from the market close on Nov. 30.

The draft list of potentially affected securities, released alongside the Oct. 15 statement and using Sept. 30 financial figures along with Oct. 9 market valuations, already labels five firms as Deleted. Those are Strategy (MSTR), the uranium investor Yellow Cake, Japan-based Metaplanet, Iceland's Skel Fjárfestingafélag, and the micro-cap company Upexi.

Among the five, Strategy stands out as the sole large-cap name, making up over 90% of their combined float-adjusted market value. The company held 850,364 bitcoin as of Nov. 8, bought at an average of $75,456 per coin.

How the MSCI screen works

Bitcoin is not named in the screening rule. The first step is MSCI checking if a company's operating assets make up more than 50% of its total assets. Firms that fall short are evaluated against five financial ratios, and being flagged on four or more of them means they cannot be included in the MSCI Global Investable Market Indexes.

Turnover is constrained by buffers. A firm not already in the indexes cannot be added if it falls short on the screen during either of its two most recent annual filings, whereas a firm already inside is dropped only if it fails both of those periods. MSCI indicated it could also consider the latest interim filing.

This two-filing requirement represents the key uncertainty for Strategy. Having shifted to fair-value accounting for its bitcoin holdings at the beginning of 2025, Strategy's fiscal 2024 filings recorded the coins at cost minus impairment, and MSCI has not clarified how it handles that prior year. The Deleted label suggests MSCI's draft assessment is that Strategy already fell short in both periods, though the factors behind that decision have not been released.

Strategy has argued before MSCI that its bitcoin treasury is reported as an operating segment, with related gains and losses booked within operating expenses.

This screen is a replacement for an earlier plan that specifically targeted crypto. In late 2025 MSCI initially proposed blocking firms where digital assets comprised half or more of total assets, but scrapped that scheme in January and launched a wider consultation in August. The new rule also terminates the interim steps MSCI imposed on those companies in October 2025, such as freezing share-count growth and holding off on additions.

MSCI decides this afternoon whether Strategy and Metaplanet remain in its global indexes. JPMorgan estimates the removal could trigger up to $2.8 billion in forced selling from passive funds.

What a deletion would and would not do

A deletion would compel funds pegged to an MSCI index, which must mirror its holdings, to sell their Strategy positions before the Nov. 30 market close. Analysts at JPMorgan estimated in November that dropping Strategy from MSCI could lead to roughly $2.8 billion in outflows, potentially swelling to $8.8 billion if rival index providers took similar action. That forecast was based on MSCI's initial digital-asset proposal rather than the October screen, and MSCI has offered no numbers of its own.

Being cut from the index would not remove Strategy's stock from listing, nor would the regulations compel the company to sell off any bitcoin. The pressure is set to fall on the share price, and consequently on the premium that Strategy leverages to finance new acquisitions through stock sales. The firm told MSCI in August that removing it "would have no meaningful impact on Strategy's business."

Strategy's own buffer is stretched. In the week ending Nov. 8, it purchased 1,036 bitcoin for $81.9 million, a deal that put the company's overall holdings below their average purchase price. Bitcoin was trading around $73,900 on Wednesday.

Should Strategy fall short on just its most recent filing instead of both, it would avoid deletion this cycle and be moved to a watchlist instead. Seventeen other constituents are already on that draft watchlist, among them SharpLink, TON Strategy, and Solana Company.

Metaplanet, which trades in Tokyo, carries the same Deleted tag after a sale of bitcoin last quarter intended to demonstrate to shareholders that it can access its holdings for cash. The central question now is whether Wednesday's definitive list confirms those Deleted labels, or if MSCI moves some of the five firms back to the watchlist.