Strategy (MSTR +2.02%), the tech company formerly known as MicroStrategy, has taken investors on a wild ride since its IPO. It went public at a split-adjusted price of $6 on June 11, 1998, and closed at $313 at the peak of the dot-com bubble on March 10, 2000. But by July 2, 2002, Strategy's stock had dropped to its all-time low of $0.45 per share.
A $10,000 investment in its IPO would have briefly blossomed to $521,667 and withered to $750 in its first four years as a public company. But today, Strategy's stock trades at about $300 again -- so that investment would have gradually recovered to about $500,000. A $10,000 investment in Strategy at its all-time low in 2022 would be worth $6.67 million today.
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Let's see why Strategy's stock went through those wild swings over the past 27 years, and if it might split its stock again in the near future to draw more investors to its volatile stock.
A brief look at Strategy's business transformations
Back when MicroStrategy went public, it sold data crunching and analytics software for big companies like McDonald's. But over the past two decades, its software business struggled as cloud-based competitors like Salesforce, diversified public cloud platforms like Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Microsoft Azure, and smaller mobile business intelligence companies like Domo carved up the market. From 2010 to 2020, its revenue only grew at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 0.6%.
But instead of following other aging tech companies and ramping up its buybacks and dividends as its sales growth stalled out, its then-CEO Michael Saylor directed the company to start accumulating Bitcoin (BTC +1.39%).
NASDAQ: MSTR
Key Data Points
As of March 16, Strategy's cryptocurrency hoard had grown to 499,226 Bitcoins with an average purchase price of $33.1 billion. That stake is now worth $42.6 billion and accounts for over half of its market cap of $79.2 billion. It recently raised another $711 million through a preferred stock offering, and it's expected to plow most of those proceeds into additional Bitcoin purchases to drive its total holdings past 500,000 tokens.
Strategy is now the world's largest corporate holder of Bitcoin by a wide margin, and Saylor -- who stepped down as its CEO in 2022 but remains its executive chairman -- expects the cryptocurrency's price to surge to $13 million by 2045. It's also committed to raising another $42 billion through a "21/21 plan" ($21 billion in equity offerings and $21 billion in fixed-income security offerings) to fund its Bitcoin purchases through 2027.
Strategy's all-in bet on Bitcoin will overshadow its slow-growth software business -- which it's gradually trying to turn around with new cloud and generative AI features -- for the foreseeable future. Strategy's stock will inevitably rally if Bitcoin's price surges, but it will also plummet if elevated interest rates and other macro headwinds drive the cryptocurrency's price lower.
Would another stock split matter for Strategy?
Strategy has split its stock three times since its IPO. It executed a 2-for-1 stock split near the peak of the dot-com bubble on Jan. 27, 2000. But after its stock price collapsed, it hastily executed a reverse 1-for-10 stock split on July 31, 2002 to keep its stock price above $1 and avoid being delisted from the Nasdaq.
Strategy didn't split its stock again until its 10-for-1 split on Aug. 8, 2024. The day before that stock split, its price had reached nearly $1,360 per share. Its stock price has more than doubled since then, but it still remains below its dot-com peak and its all-time high of $473.83 on Nov. 20, 2024.
Like many other Bitcoin stocks, Strategy's stock slumped over the past few months as fears of tariffs, sticky inflation, and elevated interest rates weighed down the top cryptocurrency's price. Therefore, its stock price probably won't soar back above $1,000 unless Bitcoin's price abruptly skyrockets -- so it probably isn't in a hurry to split its stock again.
Investors shouldn't care too much about those stock splits
Stock splits don't actually make a stock fundamentally cheaper. They merely cut an existing share into smaller slices, which trade at lower prices. That mattered back when brokerages charged high commissions and investors could only buy single shares. But the rise of commission-free trading platforms and fractional trades made stock splits a lot less relevant, even though they still generate a lot of media buzz.
So instead of wondering when Strategy will split its stock again, investors should wonder how sustainable its all-in bet on Bitcoin is. They should also realize it will keep diluting its existing investors and increasing its debt to fund that risky strategy. If you're as bullish on Bitcoin as Michael Saylor is, Strategy's stock might seem like a good investment. But if you're not that confident, it might make more sense to simply accumulate a little Bitcoin of your own instead of buying Strategy's volatile stock.
