Strategy (MSTR) Deleted From MSCI USA Index; Funds Face Nov 30 Deadline

The index provider announced on Wednesday that Strategy, the top corporate holder of bitcoin, will be taken out of the MSCI USA Index when the market closes on Nov. 30. The move follows a screening process that designated the firm as a non-operating issuer.

The change was disclosed in MSCI's November 2026 Index Review, published after 5 p.m. Eastern time. The published deletion lists confirm Strategy has been removed from the USA Index, which in turn pushes it out of the broader MSCI World and ACWI benchmarks. Four other companies were removed in the same batch: Metaplanet from the MSCI Japan Small Cap Index, the uranium holder Yellow Cake from the MSCI United Kingdom Small Cap Index, Iceland's Skel Fjárfestingafélag from the MSCI Iceland Frontier Markets Small Cap Index, and the micro-cap firm Upexi from the USA Micro Cap Index. Every one of the five had already been flagged as Deleted on MSCI's potential-impact list, which used financial data from Sept. 30 and market values from Oct. 9.

Strategy stands as the only large-cap company among the deleted names. It represented over 90% of the total float-adjusted market value of the five companies on that October list. According to its filings, Strategy owned 850,364 bitcoin as of Nov. 8, with an average purchase price of $75,456 per coin, summing to $64.16 billion in total spending.

The stock ended the regular session at $122.35, a 1.06% gain, but later fell 1.51% in extended trading to $120.50 by 5:34 p.m. ET.

How the MSCI screen works

The screening methodology makes no explicit reference to bitcoin. It starts by assessing if a company's operating assets account for 50% or more of its total assets. Companies that fail this initial test are then assessed against five financial ratios. A firm flagged on four or more of those ratios becomes ineligible for the MSCI Global Investable Market Indexes.

Guardrails are in place. A company that is not currently in the index and fails the ineligibility test in either of its last two annual filing periods cannot be added. However, an existing index member is expelled only if it fails in both periods, and MSCI stated it might look at the most recent interim filing as well.

On Wednesday, MSCI added that this same non-operating treatment will be extended to the MSCI US Index Series.

This procedure replaces an earlier framework that was directly targeting crypto holdings. In late 2025, MSCI initially proposed excluding firms where digital assets represented at least 50% of total assets. It scrapped that proposal in January and launched a wider public consultation in August. The new methodology was formally adopted on Oct. 15, featuring only minor changes, and MSCI announced it was terminating the interim measures imposed on these firms in October 2025, which included a halt on share-count increases and a suspension of new additions.

What the deletion does and does not do

Index-tracking funds are required to mirror their benchmark's composition, which means they must dispose of the removed stocks before the market closes on Nov. 30. An estimate by JPMorgan analysts last November projected that an exclusion could trigger roughly $2.8 billion in selling of Strategy shares, potentially rising by an extra $8.8 billion if other index providers took similar steps. That projection was based on MSCI's original digital-asset proposal rather than the final October screen, and MSCI has not issued its own estimate.

The deletion does not result in Strategy's stock being delisted, nor are there any rules compelling the company to sell its bitcoin. The immediate effect falls on the share price, and, in turn, on the premium that Strategy relies on to raise capital for new bitcoin acquisitions by issuing stock.

In a letter sent in August, Strategy argued that being dropped from the index 'would have no meaningful impact on Strategy's business.' The company has further stated that funds tracking the MSCI global investable indexes own 3.1% of its basic shares outstanding, and that it classifies its bitcoin holdings as an operating segment under U.S. GAAP.

A total of 17 other firms were listed on the potential watchlist, among them SharpLink, TON Strategy, and Solana Company. None of these were included in the deletions published on Wednesday.

The only other bitcoin treasury company in the group of deleted names is Tokyo-listed Metaplanet, which sold some of its bitcoin last quarter to demonstrate its ability to access holdings for liquidity. In the week leading up to Nov. 8, Strategy bought 1,036 bitcoin worth $81.9 million, a transaction that brought its total holdings below that average purchase price.