MSCI Index Removal List Wednesday Can Delete Bitcoin Firm Strategy After Two Failed Annual Filings

MSCI will publish its November 2026 index review at 5:00 p.m. ET on Wednesday, Nov. 11, and its new non-operating company screen can delete a constituent after two failed annual filings, with no two-year grace period. Every change takes effect as of the close of Nov. 30, which means any fund that tracks an affected MSCI index must trade out of deleted stocks by then.

Unchained reports that MSCI's list of potentially affected securities, built on Sept. 30 financial data, names five possible deletions: Strategy, Yellow Cake, Metaplanet, Skel Fjárfestingafélag and Upexi. Unchained also describes a separate public watchlist of 17 companies. The sources reviewed for this article do not show which names failed both filings, so Wednesday's list is the first real test.

MSCI Publishes Final Deletion List Wednesday, Nov. 11, at 5 p.m. ET

MSCI said in a Nov. 4 notice that it will post the review results shortly after 11:00 p.m. Central European Time, which is 5:00 p.m. ET. The notice covers MSCI's Global Standard, Small Cap, among others, and does not mention the new screen or name any company.

The link to bitcoin treasury firms comes from MSCI's Oct. 15 methodology announcement, which adopted its August proposal with minor modifications and ended the interim measures it had applied since October 2025 to companies holding digital assets worth at least half their total assets. MSCI had first proposed excluding such firms, then dropped that plan in January 2026 and opened a broader consultation. The new test applies to any corporate issuer whose operating assets are under half of total assets, not just crypto holders.

Will Strategy Be Removed From MSCI Indexes on Nov. 11?

Public sources do not settle it. A constituent is deleted only if it fails the screen in both of its two most recent annual filings, so Strategy must have failed on both its latest annual filing and the one before it. Unchained reports that MSCI's impact list includes Strategy, but the sources reviewed do not show the filing-by-filing results behind that placement.

One detail makes the two-filing requirement a live question for Strategy. The company adopted fair-value accounting for bitcoin as of January 1, 2025, so its fiscal 2024 statements carried bitcoin at cost less impairment rather than at market value. How MSCI handles that earlier year has not been published.

Constituents Face Deletion Only After Failing Both Latest Annual Filings

The screen starts with a core test: a company passes if its operating assets exceed 50% of total assets. A company that fails it faces five ratios covering operating asset intensity, expense intensity, cash flow, fair-value exposure and dependence on outside financing, and four flags make it ineligible.

Existing constituents get looser thresholds than new candidates. A constituent's operating asset intensity must fall below 10%, versus 20% for a non-constituent, and its capital dependence must exceed 30%, versus 20% for non-constituents. That makes the buffer a lookback on filings, not a waiting period. A constituent that failed both of its two latest annual filings can be deleted in the first review that applies the screen, while one that failed only the latest goes onto a public watchlist, MSCI says. Non-members are barred from joining if they fail in either period, and MSCI may use interim filings.

Strategy Says Two Flags Never Trip While CoinGape Reports All Five

Strategy has fought the screen in public. In a letter reported Sept. 1, Executive Chairman Michael Saylor and CEO Phong Le called the proposal discriminatory, arbitrary, and misguided. The company argues that it reports its bitcoin treasury as an operating segment and books related gains and losses in operating expenses, so it trips neither the expense flag nor the fair-value flag. It also asked MSCI to place a legal hold on documents tied to the test's development, and it has announced no litigation.

Analyst Adam Livingston reached a different count. He judged that Strategy likely trips operating asset intensity, expense intensity and fair-value exposure, while positive operating cash flow and financing at about 26% of assets, against the 30% constituent threshold, could let it avoid two others. Three flags would leave Strategy one short of ineligible. CoinGape, by contrast, reportedly says Strategy fails all five screens on its fiscal 2025 filings without naming a source for that count, and Decrypt's account of the same consultation does not make that claim.

Strategy's own account and Livingston's cannot both be right about the expense and fair-value flags, and Unchained's report that MSCI's list includes Strategy suggests MSCI's calculation reached four flags on the data it used. That reading is an inference, since MSCI has not published the inputs. In a 2022 comment letter to the SEC, MSCI said index providers take no view on whether any investment is good or bad, and Strategy argues that deciding whether bitcoin counts as an operating asset contradicts that stance.

Strategy Books Bitcoin Losses as Operating Expenses, Complicating Expense Flag

Strategy's filings put bitcoin price swings inside its income statement. Since adopting fair-value accounting, it has recorded changes in bitcoin's value in net income, and for fiscal 2025 it reported a $5.40 billion unrealized loss on digital assets. Strategy told MSCI that it books bitcoin treasury gains and losses as operating expenses after discussions with the SEC, according to The Block's report.

That creates the largest question the screen leaves open: the expense and fair-value flags can swing with bitcoin's price, so the same company could pass or fail depending on whether MSCI counts those fair-value lines as expenses. MSCI's published methodology, as read for this article, does not resolve how it treats them. Strategy also argues that "operating" and "non-operating" lack definitions under U.S. accounting rules, which is the same gap from another side.

JPMorgan Estimated $2.8B of MSCI-Driven Selling; Others Say Far Less

Passive funds that track an MSCI index must hold what it holds, so a deletion forces them to sell. JPMorgan analysts estimated in November 2025 that exclusion from MSCI indexes could cause about $2.8 billion in outflows, and another $8.8 billion if other index providers followed. The roughly $11.6 billion some outlets cite is those two figures added together.

Newer estimates are lower. CoinGape put the MSCI-specific figure at $1.8 billion to $2.0 billion without saying who calculated it, and TIKR argued that funds tracking MSCI hold only about 13 million Strategy shares, less than a day's trading volume. MSCI has published no estimate. Strategy makes up about 86.9% of the combined float-adjusted market value of the six affected companies, roughly $23.93 billion of $27.55 billion.

The larger outflow scenario depends on other providers copying MSCI. FTSE Russell publishes its own Digital Asset Treasury Index Series, but the sources reviewed show no other major provider announcing an MSCI-style screen. A deletion does not delist a stock and does not force a company to sell bitcoin.

Lost Issuance Premium May Cost Strategy More Than Forced Selling

Livingston argues that the bigger threat is to the speed of future bitcoin accumulation, not to existing holdings. Strategy has raised capital by selling stock at a premium to the bitcoin value behind each share, and he argues that heavy index selling could compress that premium. At an illustrative $95 a share, the $2.8 billion scenario equals roughly 29.5 million shares, more than double TIKR's 13 million.

A premium to underlying asset value is not unique to Strategy. Wikipedia's closed-end fund entry cites 1991 work by Charles Lee, Andrei Shleifer and Richard Thaler on individual-investor noise trading as one reason such funds trade away from net asset value. Strategy kept buying through the review period: it purchased 811 bitcoin between Oct. 26 and Nov. 1 and held about 849,000 as of Nov. 1.

Yellow Cake, Metaplanet, Skel and Upexi Share Strategy's Deletion Risk

Yellow Cake is a UK-listed company that holds physical uranium, and Decrypt draws no crypto link to it, which suggests the screen targets balance-sheet structure and not one asset class. In figures from MSCI's consultation as of May, it carried a float-adjusted market cap of $1.81 billion, against $654 million for Japan's Metaplanet.

Metaplanet held 43,000 bitcoin as of June 30, and the Tokyo Stock Exchange moved its industry classification to Other Financing Business effective Oct. 1. Upexi, a Solana treasury company, fell about 60% in June 2025 after investors registered 43.85 million shares for resale, equal to its initial float. No public detail on Skel Fjárfestingafélag's holdings was found in the sources reviewed.

Holders of MSCI-Tracking Funds Can Check Exposure Before Nov. 30 Close

Investors in funds that track MSCI USA or MSCI World can check fund fact sheets for Strategy exposure before Wednesday's list posts, since Strategy is a constituent of both. The decision to watch is whether MSCI deletes Strategy on Nov. 11, and the number to watch afterward is Strategy's premium to its bitcoin value, which determines how cheaply it can fund new purchases. Figures for passive outflows are third-party estimates, not MSCI forecasts.

This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice. Readers should conduct their own due diligence before making investment decisions.

Frequently Asked Questions

Will MSCI remove Strategy from its indexes?

MSCI will announce its decision at 5:00 p.m. ET on Wednesday, Nov. 11. Strategy can be deleted only if it failed the screen in each of its two most recent annual filings, and public sources do not show those results.

Could bitcoin's price decide whether Strategy fails the screen?

It could influence the expense and fair-value flags, because Strategy says it books bitcoin treasury gains and losses within operating expenses, The Block reports. Whether MSCI counts those lines as expenses has not been published.

What happens to index funds when a company is deleted?

Funds that replicate the index sell the stock, typically by the effective date. MSCI says its changes take effect after the Nov. 30 close.

Does an MSCI deletion force Strategy to sell bitcoin?

No. Deletion removes mechanical demand from index funds, but it does not delist the stock or require the company to sell its holdings.