MSCI Adopts Index Screen That Flags Strategy for Removal

MSCI will begin screening stocks on whether they run an operating business, and its own May 2026 simulation of the rule flagged Strategy, Yellow Cake PLC and Metaplanet for deletion from its main global index. The provider said on 15 October it will implement the proposal it set out in a consultation on 3 August, with minor modifications, as part of the November 2026 Index Review, effective at the close on 30 November 2026.

The next hard date is 11 November, when MSCI publishes the final list of companies to be removed alongside that review announcement. Funds that track the MSCI Global Investable Market Indexes sell whatever leaves the index, and JPMorgan analysts have estimated that removing Strategy could trigger roughly $2.8 billion of selling. That estimate was built on MSCI's earlier digital assets proposal, not the rules adopted this week, so treat it as an order of magnitude rather than a forecast.

The Screen Runs Twice Before a Stock Is Out

MSCI assesses a company in two steps. The core screen asks whether operating assets are more than 50% of total assets. A company above that line stays in. One below it goes to an exclusion screen made of five ratios: operating asset intensity, expense intensity, the cash flow screen, fair value intensity and capital dependence. A security is ineligible if it is flagged on four or more of the five.

The thresholds are not the same for everybody in the index:

• For non-constituents, the proposed flags are operating asset intensity below 20%, expense intensity below 5%, cash flow below zero, fair value intensity above 5% and capital dependence above 20%.
• For current ACWI IMI constituents, the bar is lower: operating asset intensity below 10% and capital dependence above 30%.

Existing constituents also get time. MSCI removes them only if they fail the screen in each of their two most recent annual filing periods, while a company outside the index is blocked for failing in either of the two most recent periods. The stated aim is to catch corporate issuers that behave like funds, which are already ineligible, without pulling out companies that do run something.

Strategy, Metaplanet and Yellow Cake Failed the May Run

MSCI applied the proposed screen to the ACWI IMI as of May 2026 and found three deletions. Strategy, a US large cap, showed a free-float-adjusted market capitalisation of about $23.93 billion. Yellow Cake PLC, a UK small cap, was $1.81 billion, and Metaplanet, a Japanese small cap, was $654 million. Three more names went on a public watchlist: Center Laboratories of Taiwan, Lydia Holding of Turkey and Sharplink, a US small cap.

Those are simulation results, not the decision. The 11 November list can differ, and the two-year filing requirement means a first failure does not always end in removal.

The Crypto-Specific Rule Is Being Retired

MSCI is also discontinuing, effective with the November review, the interim measures it announced on 10 October 2025 for companies whose digital asset holdings represented 50% or more of total assets. The new non-operating test replaces that narrower digital-asset trigger for every issuer, not just the treasury firms.

Strategy Says the Test Misreads Its Business

Strategy argued against the changes during the consultation. In August the company said funds tracking MSCI's Global Investable Market Indexes hold about 13 million MSTR shares, 3.1% of its basic shares outstanding, which it said amounts to less than one day's trading volume, so an exclusion would not meaningfully affect it. It has also argued its Bitcoin business qualifies as an operating segment under US accounting principles, and called the proposal misguided.

At stake for holders is not whether Strategy sells coins. Any selling would come from funds adjusting portfolios to match a changed index, not from the company's Bitcoin stack.

What 11 November Changes

MSCI set a consultation result deadline of 16 October; we looked at what a removal would mean for Strategy's index funds while that deadline was open. The provider answered a day early, and the operative document is its own index announcement, which says the screen will be implemented and the interim measures retired.

If Strategy appears on the final list, index funds have to sell by the 30 November close. If it does not, the screen still applies to every other issuer, and the watchlist names become the ones to track. Either way, the next verifiable event is a list of names on 11 November, not another estimate.