Bernstein says MicroStrategy is 'building the world's largest bitcoin company' and has 80% upside

Published Fri, Jun 14 20249:36 AM EDTUpdated Fri, Jun 14 202411:28 AM EDT

MicroStrategy can run another 80% from here thanks to its aggressive bitcoin buying strategy, according to Bernstein. The Wall Street firm initiated research coverage of MicroStrategy on Thursday before the market opened with an outperform rating and a $2,890 price target. That implies upside of another 80% based on the stock's Wednesday close of $1,603.67. By early trading Friday, MicroStrategy was already up 138% year to date, more than double bitcoin's roughly 57% advance in the same period. "Since August 2020, MSTR has transformed from a small software company to the largest bitcoin holding company, owning 1.1% of world's Bitcoin supply worth ~$14.5Bn," Bernstein analyst Gautam Chhugani said in a note. "MSTR's founder chairman, Michael Saylor has become synonymous with brand bitcoin and has positioned MSTR as a leading bitcoin company, attracting at-scale capital (both debt and equity) for an active bitcoin acquisition strategy." MicroStrategy, which launched as a provider of enterprise software, began employing an aggressive bitcoin-buying strategy in 2020 and has primarily traded as a proxy for the crypto's price since then. This February, the company said it would shift its focus and brand to bitcoin development. "MSTR positions itself as an 'active-leveraged' bitcoin strategy vs. passive spot ETFs," Chhugani said. "Over the last four years, MSTR's active strategy has delivered a higher bitcoin per equity share. … On a dollar basis, MSTR's Bitcoin $ NAV per share has grown ~4-fold beating ~2.4x growth in bitcoin spot price." He noted that bitcoin per share has grown 67%, from 6 BTC per diluted share in the fourth quarter of 2020 to about 10 BTC per MicroStrategy per share today. As part of the call, Bernstein raised its bitcoin target price to a "cycle-high" of $200,000 in 2025 from a previous objective of $150,000. — CNBC's Michael Bloom contributed reporting. Correction: This article has been updated to reflect that Bernstein's price target of $2,890, showing upside of about 80%, was based on MicroStrategy's Wednesday closing price of $1,603.67. A previous version gave an incorrect day's closing price.