MSCI deletes Strategy from indexes at November close

MSCI confirmed that Strategy will be deleted from its global equity indexes, publishing the final list of affected securities in its November index review and setting the changes to take effect after the market close on Nov. 30. The list marks "STRATEGY A" with the action "Deleted," Cointelegraph reported.

Japan's Metaplanet and treasury company Upexi are also marked for deletion on the same list, while Ether treasury firm Sharplink sits on a watchlist, the final list shows. Strategy shares fell 1.65 percent in after-hours trading on Wednesday following the publication.

The rule that produces the deletion was settled a month earlier. On Oct. 15, MSCI published the results of its consultation on the eligibility of non-operating companies and said it would implement the proposal first raised in the Aug. 3 consultation with minor modifications, the announcement states. Non-operating companies become ineligible for the MSCI Global Investable Market Indexes, the family that includes MSCI USA and MSCI World. Investment funds, business development companies and other passive vehicles were already excluded under the same rules; the change extends ineligibility to other corporate issuers with similar characteristics, identified through new quantitative screens. MSCI placed the changes in the November 2026 Index Review, effective at the close on Nov. 30.

The announcement describes two gates. An initial core screen asks whether an issuer has substantial operating assets, and companies that fail it face an exclusion screen built from five non-industry-specific financial ratios; a security flagged on four or more of the five is ineligible. Crypto Briefing described the same screen in operational terms: first a test of whether operating assets make up more than 50 percent of a company's total assets, then five financial-ratio tests covering operational performance, expenses, cash flow, fair-value changes and reliance on raising capital. A company that trips four or more of the five ratios is disqualified.

Existing index members get a buffer. Current constituents are removed only if they fail the screen in both of their two most recent annual filing periods, so one weak year alone does not eject a member, and MSCI may also use the most recent interim filing if available, the announcement says. Non-constituents are ineligible for addition if they fail in either of the two periods. The fifth ratio, which measures dependence on capital raises, hits the financing model that bitcoin treasury companies use to add coins.

The Oct. 15 notice also closes out a period of temporary treatment for digital asset treasury names. MSCI said it will discontinue, effective with the November review, the interim measures announced on Oct. 10, 2025 for a preliminary list of companies whose digital asset holdings represented 50 percent or more of total assets. Those measures froze changes to share counts and foreign and domestic inclusion factors and deferred additions and size-segment migrations for the affected securities. Going forward, eligibility for all such companies is assessed under the new screens.

Strategy holds roughly 850,000 Bitcoin as of early November 2026, and those coins represent most of the company's assets, the report said. The company opposed the proposal during consultation, arguing that it repackaged an earlier MSCI effort to exclude digital asset treasury companies and injected policy judgments into index construction, Cointelegraph reported. Strategy has also argued that the new guidelines discriminate against businesses with large digital asset holdings, Crypto Briefing wrote.

The company also played down the practical size of the exit. In its consultation response, Strategy said MSCI-linked funds held about 13 million shares, or 3.1 percent of its basic shares outstanding, a stake smaller than one day of trading volume, the coverage noted.

Outside estimates of the selling pressure run higher. JPMorgan previously estimated that Strategy's exclusion could trigger roughly $2.8 billion in share sales, a figure carried from October estimates and repeated in the rules coverage. Funds that track the affected benchmarks generally must sell when a stock leaves an index, and the fixed date lets other traders position ahead of the effective close. Removal also cuts a source of passive investment demand for the shares, Cointelegraph noted.

Metaplanet appears on MSCI's potential-deletion list alongside companies including Yellow Cake and Upexi facing scrutiny, the same coverage said. The final list of affected securities reached publication on Nov. 11 as part of MSCI's November index review, the rules report said, and the timetable that sets the post-close implementation was announced in October. The Nov. 30 close stands as the date when the deletions land in the benchmarks.