Elevated trading activity ahead of the ex-dividend date drove STRC to a record-setting session.
Disclosure: The author owns shares in Strategy (MSTR).
Stretch (STRC), the perpetual preferred stock issued by Strategy (MSTR)—the largest public corporate holder of bitcoin (BTC)—registered $1.53 billion in trading volume on Thursday, the highest in its history.
Data from BitcoinQuant suggests the surge in turnover helped fund the purchase of approximately 11,707 bitcoin through Strategy’s at-the-market (ATM) issuance program, which the company uses to raise capital for additional BTC acquisitions.
The bulk of STRC trading occurred at or above its $100 par value. Thursday’s volume was more than four times its 30-day daily average of around $331 million. The preferred shares currently offer an annual dividend yield of 11.5%, distributed in monthly cash payments.
Dividend-paying instruments typically see increased activity in the session leading up to the ex-dividend date—the cutoff after which new buyers are not entitled to the next dividend.
With Friday marking STRC’s ex-dividend date, shares declined to $99.12 in pre-market trading, a drop of nearly 1%. Such price adjustments are common, as stocks often fall by roughly the dividend amount once they begin trading ex-dividend.
Meanwhile, bitcoin slipped to $80,500, weighing on Strategy’s common stock (MSTR), which fell 2% in pre-market trading.
