Strategy (MSTR) Stock Falls 5.09% as Strategy STRC Hits Record Low $89

MSTR Drops 5% as Strategy's Bitcoin Funding Stock Hits $89 Record Low

Strategy's preferred stock funding machine just seized up — and MSTR is paying the price.

Key Takeaways:

• Strategy (MSTR) Stock fell 5.09% to $116.56 on June 18, 2026

• STRC preferred stock hit a record low of $89, pausing Strategy's Bitcoin-buying ATM program

• The Fed dot plot now shows 9 of 18 members expecting a rate hike before year-end

• Strategy sold 32 BTC in May — its first Bitcoin sale since 2022 — to fund STRC dividends

MSTR Slides to Eight-Month Low

Strategy (MSTR) Stock closed at $116.56 on Wednesday, shedding $6.25 or 5.09% in a single session. It opened at $123.01, briefly touched $125.42, then fell to an intraday low of $116.36.

Volume reached 18.05 million shares. Premarket on June 18 showed MSTR recovering slightly to $118.58, as per CoinStats.

The technical picture is unambiguously bearish. RSI (14) sits at 35.71, approaching oversold territory.

All three major moving averages — MA-20 at $121.91, MA-50 at $125.35, and MA-200 at $196.21 — stack overhead in a classic downtrend formation.

MSTR has now dropped over 67% from its October 2025 high above $360.

STRC Breaks Below Its Own IPO Price

The sharper story is happening in Strategy's preferred stock. STRC — the Variable Rate Series A Perpetual Stretch Preferred Stock — closed at $89 on June 17, touching an intraday low of $88.50.

Both are records since it launched in July 2025 near its $100 IPO price.

STRC is engineered to hold near $100 par through a monthly-adjusted variable dividend, currently yielding 12.9% annually. It hasn't traded at par since May 15.

The mechanism matters: when STRC trades above $100, Strategy issues new shares through its at-the-market program and converts the proceeds into Bitcoin. That pipeline is now shut.

On June 17 alone, STRC saw $417.5 million in trading volume — a sign of intense market stress, not routine activity.

Adding competitive pressure, Strive's SATA preferred stock trades above $99 with a 13.69% yield, pulling income investors away from Strategy's product.

Strategy Breaks the "Never Sell" Pledge

The STRC selloff didn't happen in isolation. In late May, Strategy sold 32 Bitcoin for approximately $2.5 million to fund STRC dividend payments — the company's first Bitcoin sale since 2022 and a direct break from Chairman Michael Saylor's longstanding commitment never to liquidate holdings.

Strategy currently holds approximately 846,842 BTC at an average cost of $75,658 per coin. With Bitcoin near $64,000, the portfolio carries a paper loss of roughly $11,658 per coin.

The company's USD reserve has declined from $2.25 billion at the start of 2026 to approximately $1.1 billion.

Analysts at Benchmark and TD Cowen say a full "death spiral" remains unlikely, though reserve erosion is a metric investors are now tracking closely.

A Hawkish Fed Tightens the Screws on Bitcoin

The Federal Reserve voted 12-0 to hold rates at 3.50%–3.75% on June 17. The headline decision was no surprise. The dot plot was.

Nine of 18 FOMC members now project at least one rate hike before year-end 2026. PCE inflation was revised sharply to 3.6% from a prior 2.7%. New Fed Chair Kevin Warsh eliminated forward guidance from the statement entirely.

Bitcoin dropped toward $63,000 in the aftermath, triggering $122 million in crypto liquidations.

For Strategy (MSTR) Stock, the logic is direct: higher rates increase the opportunity cost of holding a non-yielding asset like Bitcoin, hitting the core thesis on which the entire balance sheet is built.

Price Targets and What Comes Next

Key technical levels to watch:

• Support: $114.73 (daily pivot S1), $119.83 (volume cluster)

• Resistance: $125.35 (MA-50), then $129–$145 overhead

• 52-week low: $104.17

Fourteen Wall Street analysts maintain an average 12-month price target of $351.54 for MSTR — implying over 200% upside from current levels. Another analyst models a 2026 range of $124.03–$226.65.

Both scenarios hinge on a Bitcoin recovery well above $75,000. The near-term catalyst is simpler: if it cannot reclaim its $100 par value, Strategy's primary Bitcoin-buying engine stays offline — and MSTR has little fundamental tailwind without it.

This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment or financial advice. Always conduct your own research and consult a licensed financial advisor before making investment decisions.