Analysts overhaul MicroStrategy stock price target amid bitcoin rally

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Analysts overhaul MicroStrategy stock price target amid bitcoin rally

trade ideas :: 2024-12-13 :: source - thestreet

By Rob Lenihan

Humans have been searching for the next technology wave ever since they started rubbing two sticks together to make fire.

No matter where on the evolutionary scale they may be, a certain part of the population always believes the status quo has got to go.

Past examples of new-wave tech include personal computers, MP3 music players, smartphones and tablets. And now, of course, we've got artificial intelligence.

Michael Saylor says bitcoin is the next technology wave, and the co-founder and chief executive of MicroStrategy (MSTR) , the world's biggest holder of bitcoin, was more than willing to share his feelings with the people at Microsoft (MSFT) .

Saylor, a bitcoin evangelist, appeared at the Redmond, Wash., software giant's virtual shareholder meeting on Dec. 10 in a bid to persuade the company to invest in bitcoin.

Shares of MicroStrategy, which owns 2% of the total supply of bitcoin, have skyrocketed by a factor of more than six year to date.

And bitcoin itself surpassed $100,000 for the first time late on Dec. 4, The world’s largest cryptocurrency has more than doubled (up 142%) this year.

"Microsoft cannot afford to miss the next technology wave," Saylor said in a Dec. 1 video he posted on X. "And bitcoin is that wave. Bitcoin represents the greatest digital transformation of the 21st century. It represents digital capital."

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Saylor spoke on behalf of the National Center for Public Policy Research’s Free Enterprise Project, which sent a nearly identical proposal to Amazon (AMZN) and may do the same with other corporations, according to Ethan Peck, deputy director of the shareholder activist group, according to Bloomberg.

Trump: We're going to do something great with crypto

The Free Enterprise Project describes itself as "the original and premier opponent of the woke takeover of American corporate life."

“If you are going to outperform, you are going to need bitcoin,” Saylor said at the meeting, later adding, “If you do that, you’ll add hundreds of dollars to your stock price.”

Microsoft’s board had come out earlier against the proposal, saying it already had evaluated cryptocurrencies.

Investors rejected a ballot proposal asking the board to assess whether diversifying the balance sheet by including bitcoin is in the best long-term interests of shareholders.

Proxy advisory firms Glass Lewis and Institutional Shareholder Services concurred with that call. Glass Lewis pointed to expert reports that said there’s no guarantee that adding cryptocurrency will improve a portfolio’s returns, for example.

By the way, TheStreet Pro's Doug Kass has no love for MicroStrategy, telling readers that the only the difference between Saylor's company and bankrupted crypto exchange FTX "is that MSTR is not a fraud — it is simply an Enron-like math scheme that will likely eventually eviscerate much of the money invested in the company (inmho)."

The incoming Trump administration has promised to support cryptocurrency.

President-Elect Donald Trump, who rang the opening bell at the New York Stock Exchange on Dec. 12, told CNBC's Jim Cramer that "I think so. We're going to do something great with crypto."

Eric Trump, the president-elect's son, said during an appearance at a cryptocurrency conference in the United Arab Emirates that "you're going to have the most pro-crypto president in the history of America," The New York Times reported.

"Think about a president who wasn't going to allow bitcoin and cryptocurrencies to be overregulated and stifled," the younger Trump said.

TheStreet Pro's Stephen Guilfoyle has his own take on the next technology wave, and, spoiler alert, it ain't bitcoin.

Veteran trader had Microsoft on back burner

"While not necessarily being anti-crypto, the next technology wave is generative AI and the one after that is quantum computing," Guilfoyle said, referring to the technology that uses quantum mechanics to solve complex problems faster than classic computers.

"The blockchain is no longer cutting-edge technology," he said.

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Guilfoyle, whose career dates back to the NYSE floor in the 1980s, cited a recent note from Wedbush analyst Dan Ives, who told investors that Trump’s choice of Andrew Ferguson to head the Federal Trade Commission, succeeding Lina Kahn, essentially means that “Christmas came early for the tech world.”

“In our decades of covering tech stocks, the ‘Friday the 13th horror show’ for the tech world that Khan has become over the years is now over, which means dealmaking in the tech world is about to significantly increase heading into 2025 with the popcorn ready,” Ives wrote.

The analyst said that having a pro-innovation FTC chairman is a huge positive for the tech world, "and we also believe any chances of tech breakups goes down significantly with Khan gone from the 202 area code," a reference to the three digits you dial when you call Washington.

In reviewing Microsoft, Guilfoyle said that the S&P 500 is up about 27.5% year-to-date, while the Nasdaq 100 has done even better and is up 28.7%.

"I don't like to complain about a stock that is up 19% year to date, but Microsoft, which over the years has been great to me, has been a weight upon both of those indices," he said. "For years, Microsoft had been the top holding in my most active portfolio."

Guilfoyle said he was and remains a big believer in Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, but the investor added that the software and cloud giant had fallen to his sixth-largest long position, "partially due to the outperformance of several other names and partially because I had reduced my allocation toward the name."

The veteran traded unveiled a new price target of $512 for Microsoft.

"I think it may be time to either get back into MSFT if one has been out, or increase the allocation if one, like me, was not out but had put the stock on the back burner," he said.