Netflix shares see the biggest jump in four years

Netflix shares rose to 15% on Wednesday to trade briefly at a record high, a day after the company revealed in its fourth-quarter earnings report 2020 that it is considering repurchasing shares and surpassing 200 for the first time. millions of subscribers.

It is the biggest jump since the company’s shares closed 19% on October 18, 2016.

“We went from a historic bear on the NFLX to a bull carrying cards,” Wells Fargo analysts said in a note to customers on Wednesday. The company also improved its price target to $ 700 per share, up from $ 510. Also, at least 15 other companies have raised their price targets.

The video streaming giant said it expects to become a positive cash flow after 2021, helping to create analysts’ argument.

“We remain good at the NFLX story, as NFLX offers consumers a unique and increasingly compelling entertainment experience on almost any device, with no ads, at a still relatively low cost,” Pivotal Research Group analysts said Wednesday.

Netflix has benefited from the home boom, as the pandemic has left millions of people in need of daily entertainment in the comfort of their homes. This probably contributed to the increase in the number of paid subscribers to over 200 million for the first time. It reached 100 million subscribers in 2017.

Netflix’s growth also comes as streaming wars continue to heat up, with competition from Apple TV +, Discovery +, Disney +, HBO Max from AT & T’s WarnerMedia and Peacock from CNBC, the father of NBCUniversal. ViacomCBS ‘Paramount + will be released in March.

“We continue to believe that the failure around competition that hinders the long-term success of the NFLX is overburdened,” Jefferies analysts said Tuesday. “Some competitors will succeed, others will not, but the big picture is that there will be multiple winners in the OTT streaming space and we expect the NFLX to remain at the top of the food chain.”

Disclosure: NBCUniversal is the parent company of CNBC.