Five Names, One Ladder
Why the names blur
A preferred share is a hybrid. It is legally equity, so there is no obligation to repay it, but it behaves financially like debt: it pays a dividend at a stated rate and it carries a face value, usually $100. Strategy has issued five of them — STRK, STRF, STRD, STRC and STRE.
They all sit at $100 face, they are all perpetual, and they are all preferred. That is where the similarity ends. The tickers differ by one letter, which is why they get treated as one product when they are five.
Three questions separate them, and every one has to be answered separately: where the share sits in the queue, whether it converts into MSTR common stock, and whether the coupon is fixed or resets.
Get those three right and the marks stop looking arbitrary.
The ladder, read out of the certificates
This is not opinion. Each certificate of designations defines its own Dividend Senior Stock and Dividend Junior Stock — the shares it is paid before, and the shares that are paid before it.
STRC names the Perpetual Strife Preferred as senior. STRE names Strife and Stretch as senior. STRD names Strike and Strife as senior. STRK names nothing but the common stock as junior. Assemble those and one order falls out.
- STRF — Strife, 10.00%, top of the preferred stack
- STRE — Stream, 10.00%, second
- STRC — Stretch, variable, third
- STRK — Strike, 8.00% and convertible, fourth
- STRD — Stride, 10.00%, fifth
- then MSTR common stockholders, who are last
What each rung is selling
STRF, 10.00% — the senior claim, no conversion. It is the closest thing in this stack to a bond, and it pays the most that a senior claim can pay.
STRE, 10.00% — the same 10% coupon, but the face value is quoted in euros. For a dollar investor that adds an FX leg: part of what you earn is the euro, not the company.
STRC, variable — the coupon resets, so it is covered on its own below.
STRK, 8.00% — the only convertible of the five. Each share converts into 0.1 shares of MSTR common stock, which is an effective conversion price of $1,000 per MSTR share.
STRD, 10.00% — the same coupon as Strife and Stream, one rung below Strike, and no conversion. Identical income, worse queue position: that gap is the whole lesson of the ladder in a single instrument.
The variable one, properly
STRC is a Variable Rate Series A Perpetual Stretch Preferred. It started at 9.00% and Strategy resets the rate every month. The stated aim of the reset is to keep the share price near $100. If no new rate is set, the previous month's rate carries forward.
The consequence is the opposite of what people expect from a preferred. The volatility lands in the coupon, not in the price. If short rates fall, your income falls and your principal stays put. If they rise, your income rises. It trades like a floating-rate note rather than a share.
It is also worth being precise about accretion, because this is where the instrument gets misdescribed. The $100 claim does not grow, and unpaid dividends accumulate as a separate claim rather than being added to principal. You are not compounding a balance. You are being paid a rate that moves.
It does not convert, and it has no exposure to the bitcoin price beyond the company's ability to keep paying.
The marks, read against the ladder
As of 21 September 2026: STRF $104.00, STRC $98.51, STRK $75.42, with MSTR common at $153.92.
Line those up and the ladder explains the prices. STRF trades above its $100 face, so its 10% coupon yields 9.6% — the market accepts less for the safest claim. STRC sits at $98.51, a shade under par, and yields about 12.2%, because its coupon is the variable one and it resets to the market.
STRK is the outlier at $75.42. An 8% coupon on a $100 claim bought at $75.42 yields about 10.6%, but the discount is pricing two things at once: a claim that ranks near the bottom of the queue, and a conversion option that is worthless until MSTR is $1,000 — roughly 6.5 times the current price.
One discount, two reasons. Separate them before you decide which one you are being paid for.
What holds it up, and what breaks it
None of these five are collateralised by the bitcoin. They are claims on the company, and the coupons are serviced out of the company's cash flow — which, for a bitcoin treasury company, largely means issuing more securities.
That is the circularity to understand rather than to be frightened of. It works while the capital markets stay open to the issuer. The thing to watch is not only the coin price; it is the cost and the availability of the next raise.
All five carry cumulative dividends, so a skipped payment accrues as a claim rather than disappearing. But an accruing claim is not cash, and it ranks behind the company's debt.
And if rates fall, the fixed-coupon series appreciate while STRC resets down. That is the cleanest way to see who wins in which regime — and the reason the same company can sell you five different instruments without any of them being redundant.
Try it yourself
The simulator below runs all five side by side on the same money and the same window. Move the years, move the STRC reset rate, push MSTR toward the conversion price - the point is to watch the ranking change, because that is the ladder doing its work.
Two presets are worth trying first: Rates fall, where Strife's fixed 10% pulls ahead while Stretch's coupon resets down, and MSTR at $1,000, where Strike's conversion finally comes alive.
| Series | Entry | Coupon | Income | Exit value | Total return | Annualised |
|---|
Marks are the 21 September 2026 closes; STRD and STRE are assumed at par because our feed does not carry their marks (*). Coupons are treated as cash paid out rather than reinvested, with no tax and no fees. STRK's conversion is applied only when it beats the exit price. An illustration of structure - not a forecast, and not advice.