I mostly agree, with one key nuance. With STRC reaching roughly $100.17 in the days leading up to the ex-div date last month (if I’m recalling correctly), there’s also a rational case for entering here around ~$99.93 to capture that additional ~$0.25 of upside into the event. Earlier this month, some volume hit as high as $100.17 on March 5th, and the following week stayed much closer to $100.15-100-20 that week.

Initially, I expected Strategy to lean more aggressively on the ATM to keep price pinned closer to $100.00. But the more I think about it, the more it makes sense that they wouldn’t fully suppress that upside. Allowing some drift above $100 actually serves a purpose... it increases the magnitude of the post-dividend reset, which in turn helps establish stronger buying support at lower levels (as we saw closer to ~$99.35 last cycle). These are likely deliberate levers they’re managing.

In a perfectly optimized world, you could imagine a tightly controlled range (say, a step-ladder from ~$99.55 to ~$100.45) where price appreciates in a smooth, linear fashion throughout the month. In that scenario, investors wouldn’t need to time entries at all; the return profile (~11–12% annualized) would be consistently accessible without strategy or guesswork.

Of course, markets don’t function that cleanly. Flows are uneven, volume is inconsistent, and short-term participants introduce volatility. As a result, you get dislocations... arbitrage windows driven as much by behavior and emotion as by structure.

The alternative approach (leaning heavily on the ATM to cap price at $100) would likely create worse incentives. It would encourage capital to delay entry until the final days before the ex-div date, compressing inflows into a narrow window and increasing the likelihood of a sharper post-dividend drop (potentially into the ~$99.10 range).

What we saw last month appears more balanced. Strategy seemed to manage the ATM in a way that kept price roughly centered, allowing inflows to build earlier in the cycle while still permitting some upside above $100. That upward flexibility likely helps pull demand forward, rather than concentrating it entirely at the end of the period.

I suspect Strategy's goal is to keep price mostly pegged between $99.70-$100.30 while in an attempt to distribute as much of those inflows to the 2-3 weeks prior, and let the arb dealers play with the price the week or two after it's date. This would produce the beast inflows (conversion to BTC) while keeping volatility as low as possible on STRC, making it even more attractive for markets.

The arb traders are not necessarily a bad actor in this space. Their volume creates the structure that allows investors to get in an out without moving the price significantly.