MicroStrategy's Stock Up 6% Despite Get Its First Bear. Here's Why He Says Investors Should Sell

Dow Jones
02 Apr

MicroStrategy Inc.'s aggressive plan to sell equity and debt securities so it can buy bitcoin may have been played out, to the point that there is now one Wall Street analyst who says investors should sell the stock.

The new bearish call, by Monness Crespi Hardt analyst Gus Gala, came a day after MicroStrategy, which is now doing business as Strategy, disclosed that between March 24 and March 30, it spent $1.92 billion to buy 22,048 bitcoin (BTCUSD) at an average price of $86,969 per bitcoin.

That brought the total value of bitcoin purchases for March to $2.51 billion, and for 2025 to $7.66 billion.

The company now holds 528,185 bitcoin that it purchased for $35.63 billion. At current prices, the holding would be worth about $44.92 billion.

Gala cut his rating to sell from neutral. That makes him the only analyst who is bearish of the 14 surveyed by FactSet who cover the company. The rest are bullish.

He initiated a target on the stock of $220, which is the lowest on Wall Street and implies a 26.6% downside from current levels.

In the face of Gala's downgrade, the stock rallied 6% on Tuesday, snapping a four-day losing streak in which it had tumbled 15.7%.

Meanwhile, bitcoin gained 3.2%, after falling 5.7% over the previous four sessions.

Gala's concerns were that the investor response to recent sales of company debt and preferred stock - the proceeds of which Strategy has used to buy more bitcoin - has been "less than stellar."

He said the market appears to be a bit "saturated," meaning it could cost more for Strategy to raise funds to buy bitcoin.

Besides Strategy, cryptocurrency miner Mara Holdings Inc. $(MARA)$ announced over the weekend a $2 billion share offering, which could be used to purchase bitcoin.

Electronics and videogame retailer GameStop Corp. $(GME)$ said last week that it would start doing what Strategy does, as it said it approved an update to its investment policy to add bitcoin as a treasury reserve asset.

Under the company's plan - announced on Oct. 30, 2024 - to raise $42 billion in capital through the sale of equity in debt to buy bitcoin, the company has about $23.3 billion remaining to raise, including about $2.4 billion through the issuance of common stock.

But as Gala put it, the disappointing market interest in Strategy's preferred securities highlights the "limits to bitcoin treasury company aspiration."

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