What happened
Shares of MicroStrategy (MSTR +1.69%), a technology company that's betting big on popular cryptocurrency Bitcoin (BTC +0.18%), tumbled this week. MicroStrategy stock was sitting at $640 per share as of Thursday's close -- roughly 10% lower than where it started the week. And the reason is quite simple: Bitcoin itself is down almost that much during this time.
So what
MicroStrategy is a business data analytics software company, and in the conference call to discuss second-quarter results, management shared progress with the business. Q2 revenue was up 13% year over year thanks to some new customer wins. And revenue was also up 6% from results two years ago -- it's best growth in six years.
Image source: Getty Images.
As much as investors might want to focus on these modestly improved business fundamentals, they simply can't because of how much Bitcoin influences the stock. MicroStrategy has spent almost $3 billion buying bitcoins, and held almost 109,000 as of its most recent update. These are valued at about $5 billion right now and MicroStrategy's market capitalization is only $6.2 billion. Translation: The stock is roughly 80% Bitcoin.
Bitcoin fell this week as options traders made big bets that didn't pay off, forcing them to liquidate. So although MicroStrategy didn't report any bad news this week, its stock still took the 10% hit. It's now down about 50% from its 52-week high.
Now what
I bring up MicroStrategy's modestly improving business fundamentals because its software business is mostly an afterthought these days. It's important to give credit where it's due. That said, we've already seen why the business is an afterthought for MicroStrategy stock -- for better or worse it owns a lot of Bitcoin, and it's therefore subject to the volatility of the cryptocurrency market.
If you like to invest in technology stocks but don't like Bitcoin, then MicroStrategy stock isn't for you. It will remain a volatile stock going forward. However, if you like Bitcoin for the long haul, then you can be encouraged that MicroStrategy's business is showing early signs of growth. CEO Michael Saylor was hopeful that the company's Bitcoin strategy would distinguish it from its peers as a forward-thinking company. And it's possible that's what Q2 results started to show.
