JPMorgan Lifts Its Strategy (MSTR) Stake 36% And Holds $540 Million In Bitcoin ETFs

JPMorgan Chase raised its Strategy (MSTR) stake 36% in the third quarter, a Form 13F filed Thursday shows, lifting the position to 848,932 shares worth $131.3 million at Sept. 30, weeks before an MSCI index exit.

That is up 224,545 shares from the 624,387 JPMorgan reported at June 30, when the same holding was valued at $57.87 million. Part of the dollar jump is the stock. Strategy's implied price on the two filings rose from $92.68 at June 30 to $154.67 at Sept. 30, so the disclosed stake more than doubled in value even though the share count rose 36%.

The same filing shows a much larger bitcoin ETF line. JPMorgan held 11,408,930 shares of BlackRock's iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT) worth $539.98 million at Sept. 30, up 1,001,295 shares, or 9.6%, from 10,407,635 shares worth $355.73 million three months earlier. Rounded to the nearest million, that IBIT line is the $540 million bitcoin ETF stake.

Smaller positions in other spot funds added a little more. The bank also held 155,785 shares of Grayscale's Bitcoin Mini Trust worth $5.76 million and 66,264 shares of the Bitwise Bitcoin ETF worth $3.00 million, plus much smaller lines in Fidelity's Wise Origin Bitcoin Fund, Grayscale's Bitcoin Trust and Invesco's Galaxy Bitcoin ETF. Together, the spot bitcoin ETF shares came to about $549 million. Option positions are listed separately and are not part of that total.

JPMorgan filed a holdings report that folds in positions across 17 other included managers, so the Strategy and IBIT lines can include client, fund and discretionary positions rather than a single proprietary bet, and the firm may have changed those holdings since Sept. 30. The table lists 35,990 entries valued at $1.84 trillion. Executive Director Michael T. Lees signed the report in New York on Nov. 12.

Options sit beside the share totals, not inside the $540 million

The $540 million figure is shares only. JPMorgan also reported IBIT call options covering 3,703,200 shares, valued at $175.27 million, and put options covering 2,915,000 shares, valued at $137.97 million.

The Strategy options are larger still, relative to the common stock. The filing lists put options covering 1,148,500 Strategy shares, valued at $177.64 million, more than the $131.3 million stock line, and call options covering 349,500 shares, valued at $54.06 million. A 13F does not say whether those options are hedges, market-making inventory or client positions, and they should not be read as a single directional bet.

Other bitcoin-linked equities showed up as well. JPMorgan held 1,581,814 shares of Coinbase (COIN) worth $300.58 million, up 13% from June, and 128,788 shares of Strive (ASST) worth $3.77 million, a 179% increase in the share count. Bank of New York Mellon, in a 13F filed Nov. 5, raised its own Strive stake 28% to 237,100 shares.

The filing lands as Strategy slides and bitcoin stays under $72,000

The Sept. 30 snapshot is already dated in one important way. MSCI is removing Strategy from its MSCI USA Index after the close on Nov. 30, a step that also takes the stock out of the MSCI World and ACWI indexes. Strategy shares traded near $114.60 Thursday morning, down about 6% on the day. At that price, the 848,932 shares reported at quarter-end would be worth about $97 million, below the $131.3 million marked on the 13F.

Bitcoin traded near $71,300 Thursday morning, still below $72,000 after slipping through that level earlier in the session. That move is not reflected in the filing, which stops at Sept. 30.

Institutional managers that exercise investment discretion over $100 million or more in 13F securities have 45 days after quarter-end to disclose those holdings. That window ran to Nov. 14, a Saturday, so the deadline is Monday, Nov. 16. Wells Fargo, Millennium Management and Schonfeld Strategic Advisors had not appeared on the SEC's EDGAR system as of Thursday morning.

The filing does not show what JPMorgan did after Sept. 30, as bitcoin fell and MSCI announced the Strategy deletion. The record it left is 848,932 Strategy shares, up 36%, and nearly $540 million in IBIT.