Three companies were promoted to the prestigious S&P 500 collective this month. Unfortunately for Bitcoin treasury pioneer Michael Saylor, his firm Strategy was not among them, despite widespread expectation that it would join the likes of crypto-related Coinbase and Block in the grouping.
Saylor’s Strategy Misses Out on S&P 500 Stock Index Listing
10 September 2025 - 21:32 CEST
The multi-asset online trading platform Robinhood, which facilitates buying and selling of tokens, was added to the large-cap index in the quarterly rebalance at the end of last week, tilting the benchmark towards the crypto sphere.
Strategy’s share price has declined 2.4% this week, as at 17:24 UTC on Wednesday.
Meeting the criteria
Strategy has reached the market capitalization requirement of $15 billion: it is currently worth around $95 billion, thanks to its holding of 638,460 Bitcoin. And, the recent price drops notwithstanding, Bitcoin’s price means it has also met the criterion of positive earnings in the most recent quarter and across the previous four quarters. Other criteria include trading volumes and liquidity, which it also met.
The S&P Index Committee does not comment on inclusions and exclusions. However, it typically favours companies with diversified and sustainable business models. Since Strategy’s software enterprise is dwarfed by its growing Bitcoin holdings, which is also its main business focus, the Committee potentially sees the company as a Bitcoin proxy, deeming it currently unsuitable for the S&P 500.
Michael Saylor was interviewed by CNBC’s Squawk Box on Monday morning: “This is a brand-new novel concept. Every quarter, we make new believers,” he said. “I think that will continue for the foreseeable future.” He added that he had not expected Strategy to be added to the index this quarter.
Long term impact
Strategy’s inclusion in the S&P 500 would have meant an increase in passive flows into its stock, in turn generating more indirect investment in Bitcoin as the company buys more of the cryptocurrency.
In a note following the S&P quarterly update, Benchmark analyst Mark Palmer played down the impact: “The omission says less about Strategy’s business or its balance sheet than it does about the index committee’s discretion and their evolving comfort level with bitcoin-centric corporate models,” he said. “S&P 500 watchers have seen this movie before, most famously with Tesla, which was skipped by the committee in September 2020 and then added to the index three months later," he added.
Palmer reiterated Strategy’s buy rating.
