TLDR
- Barclays raised its price target on Strategy stock to $175 from $160, keeping an Overweight rating.
- MSTR stock rose more than 3% in Friday trading, changing hands around $157.
- Analyst Nik Cremo grouped Strategy with payments giants Visa and Mastercard rather than treating it purely as a Bitcoin proxy.
- Strategy now holds 848,000 BTC worth roughly $72.93 billion, after adding 334 BTC last week.
- Wall Street’s consensus rating on MSTR remains Strong Buy, with an average price target of $236, implying 52% upside.
Strategy stock climbed more than 3% on Friday after Barclays raised its price target on the shares. The stock traded around $157, up from Thursday’s close, following the bank’s note to clients.
Barclays analyst Nik Cremo lifted his 12-month target to $175 from $160. He kept his Overweight rating in place, a Buy-equivalent call.
The new target implies roughly 11% upside from current trading levels. It’s the third time Barclays has adjusted its view on Strategy this year.
The bank first initiated coverage with a $130 target. It cut that to $125 after Strategy’s second-quarter results, then raised it to $160 and now $175.
Barclays Groups Strategy With Payments Giants
Cremo included Strategy in Barclays’ third-quarter earnings preview for the payments and fintech sector. He placed the company alongside Visa and Mastercard rather than treating it solely as a Bitcoin holding vehicle.
The analyst pointed to Strategy’s resilience through the “crypto winter” that ran from October 2025 through the end of June this year. He also cited strong sector fundamentals and steady consumer demand heading into earnings season.
Cremo attributed September’s market volatility to rising interest rates and capital rotation into AI stocks.
Strategy’s move also tracked a Bitcoin rebound. BTC recovered to around $82,700 after dipping to a 24-hour low near $80,300.
Strategy’s Bitcoin Holdings Keep Growing
Strategy, led by Chairman Michael Saylor, now owns 848,000 BTC. The average purchase price sits at $75,441 per coin.
Those holdings are worth approximately $72.93 billion at current Bitcoin prices. The company added another 334 BTC last week for about $28.7 million.
Strategy reported a $20.91 billion gain on its Bitcoin holdings in the third quarter. The firm ramped up purchases in September after spending the summer shoring up its preferred stock, STRC, which pays a 12% yield twice monthly.
US President Donald Trump also disclosed adding Strategy shares to his portfolio in a recent ethics filing. That disclosure may have added to the stock’s gains this week.
Strategy’s business model ties its stock closely to Bitcoin’s price swings. The company’s corporate treasury is built around the cryptocurrency, making MSTR sensitive to shifts in crypto sentiment.
Over the past 30 days, MSTR has gained more than 18%. Over six months, the stock is up about 22%.
The stock carries a consensus Strong Buy rating from 13 Wall Street analysts. All 13 ratings issued in the past three months were Buy calls, with an average price target of $236.
Chart Analysis
MSTR shares have carved out a clear higher-low structure since bottoming near $100 in August, with the stock now trading at $154.34 after reclaiming the $150 support zone that had capped price action back in July. The $120-$125 band remains the nearest support on a pullback, while the $160-$165 area, where price stalled earlier this month, is the first resistance to clear before a retest of the prior highs near $200.
RSI sits at 55.38, a neutral-to-bullish reading that has room to run before overbought territory. MACD shows the blue line holding above the orange signal line with a shrinking histogram, suggesting momentum is cooling slightly after the recent run but hasn’t turned negative.
What to watch: a break below $150 could open the door back to $125, while holding above $150 keeps the near-term uptrend structure intact.
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