Wall Street giants are loading up on MicroStrategy shares, as MSTR outperforms bitcoin year-to-date

Business intelligence firm MicroStrategy had been considered a bitcoin proxy of sorts ever since it became the leading corporate holder of bitcoin in August 2020. The company now holds 331,200 BTC, worth roughly $29.7 billion, after a monster purchase of approximately $4.6 billion on Monday — its largest single-day set of transactions yet.

"MSTR’s ability to generate compounding yield on its bitcoin holdings, enabled by leverage accrued through the repeated tapping of the U.S. capital markets, differentiates its stock from alternative means of gaining exposure to bitcoin such as spot bitcoin ETFs," Benchmark analyst Mark Palmer wrote in a Nov. 18 note to clients.

As retail traders continue gobbling up shares, how does the institutional side view MicroStrategy's stock (ticker: MSTR)? 13Fs can be a way to get a glimpse into how the largest portfolios and some of the most influential money managers play the market. It turns out that Wall Street's traditional titans do not want to miss out on the ride either.

Over the past week, institutional investment managers with at least $100 million in equity assets under management filed 13F reports with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. The filings, which are required within 45 days of the end of each quarter, provide a view of the manager's stock holdings. The following data represents holdings as of Sept. 30 and does not disclose any short positions.

All told, the number of institutional holders of MicroStrategy jumped from 667 to 738 with a total reported value of $15.3 billion, according to 13f.info.

Both Vanguard Group , the world's second-largest asset manager, and Capital International Investors bought nearly 16 million MicroStrategy shares apiece in the third quarter — around a 1,000% increase in both companies' MSTR holdings. (As it happens, at the time spot bitcoin ETFs were listed in the U.S., a Vanguard executive said the firm would not offer the assets because of skepticism over crypto's "enduring investment merit" as an asset class.)

Investment banking giant Morgan Stanley didn't shy away either, buying 8 million shares — a 500% quarter-over-quarter jump. Goldman Sachs and Bank of America bought smaller sums (696,000 and 766,00 shares, respectively), but those buys follow huge purchases from the prior quarter. Meanwhile, State Street and Susquehanna bought 5.3 million of MSTR between them.

It should be noted that these holdings are relatively paltry compared to these firms' larger holdings. Vanguard, for example, owns 800 million shares of Amazon.

The price of bitcoin is up nearly 110% year-to-date, which significantly lags MicroStrategy shares that have amassed a 450% gain in the same time period. MSTR recently crossed its previous all-time high.

MicroStrategy's stock closed the trading day at $384 per share with a $78 billion market cap.