That means that if the asset falls below their most recently booked price at any point in the quarter, they are required to book an impairment charge in the amount of the drop. If it goes up, they cannot book the profit until they sell.
In, say, Microstrategy’s case, the market has entirely ignored any impairment announcements. This has been sensible I think.
(The market also has Microstrategy well overvalued compared to its holdings, but that’s another matter)
That was the case and there was a great spread trade for anyone who had the stomach for it.
But currently MSTR is valued less than the value of its BTC, which implies a negative value for their legacy business.
But they also have $2.2 billion debt. Legacy co worth about $500 million.
Add $1.7 billion to marketcap and you’ll see their bitcoin are valued at about $9.5 billion, a 30% premium. This has narrowed I think, they’ve been selling stock to arbitrage the difference.
Or, alternatively it could also imply that the market thinks the future value of their BTC holdings will drop. It's still difficult and costly to short BTC directly, so I do wonder if negative sentiments about it might be reflected better in things like MSTR valuation than in the actual BTC spot price.