Saylor's ATM Machine Goes Brrr: Strategy Pads $3.75B War Chest, Ghosts Bitcoin for Week Five 🏧

Strategy raised $544.5 million last week by selling 5,429,160 shares of its Class A common stock ($MSTR) through its at-the-market program between July 20 and July 26, lifting the company's US dollar reserve to $3.75 billion as of July 26, according to a Form 8-K filed Monday. Executive Chairman Michael Saylor said the reserve now covers 2.1 years of dividend payments. The company made no changes to its bitcoin holdings, which remain at 843,775 BTC acquired at an average price of $75,476 per coin, marking the fifth straight week without a purchase for the firm formerly known as MicroStrategy.

A portion of the proceeds — $25 million — was used to repurchase 288,930 shares of the company's Stretch ($STRC) preferred stock at an average price of $86.52, the first buyback under the $1 billion Digital Credit Securities Repurchase Program approved by the board on June 29. The purchase leaves $975 million available for further preferred repurchases. Strategy said it intends to remain "a regular, disciplined buyer of $STRC below $100," with larger repurchases at deeper discounts. STRC pays a fixed 12% annual cash dividend and has traded below its $100 par value since mid-May, notching record lows earlier this month before rising 1.99% to $88.61 in pre-market trading.

The reserve was built under the Digital Credit Capital Framework introduced in June, which authorizes the company to sell up to $1.25 billion of bitcoin to fund dividends and preferred-stock repurchases rather than tap its coin stack again. Strategy owes roughly $1.76 billion annually in preferred dividends and debt interest. In June, the company sold 3,588 BTC near $60,000 each to cover dividend obligations. The current cash position, up from $2.55 billion on June 28, now covers roughly 25 months of those obligations against a board requirement of 12 months.

$MSTR rose 1.45% to $96.22 in Monday's pre-market trading, according to Google Finance data. Bitcoin ($BTC) traded near $64,762 at publication, having risen above $65,000 over the weekend. Strategy has $22.98 billion of remaining ATM capacity for common stock issuance under current authorizations.

The buying pause is Strategy's longest in two years, and last week the firm overhauled its investor metrics, debuting a "net Bitcoin per share" measure that strips out $22.2 billion of debt and preferred claims. Peter Schiff, a longtime bitcoin skeptic, pointed to the company's falling BTC Yield — which he put at 4.5% year-to-date, down from 13.3% on May 25 — and wrote on X that investors "bullish on bitcoin are better off just owning bitcoin" rather than $MSTR shares. Second quarter results are scheduled for release after the close on Thursday.