What’s coming soon to Netflix

Netflix is one of those companies that just keeps on winning. It wins in subscribers who seemingly just will not or cannot drop their streaming subscriptions. And it wins for investors despite any worries about valuations and/or growth limitations that may face Netflix in the years ahead. But after a 500% stock rise in just the last three years or so, how are tactical investors supposed to view Netflix heading into (and then after) an imminent earnings report?

Wall Street is quite bullish on Netflix. There have been more than a dozen price target hikes since the start of June. Netflix subscribers are said to be tuning in less, at least according to some reports, but all in all the analyst community maintains that Netflix stock remains a buy. Price hikes, streaming ads, tiered offerings, and a dominant position keep investors interested.

With earnings season now afoot in July, Tactical Bulls is tracking which analysts have taken which actions. With the exception of a July 7 analyst downgrade (to Neutral from Buy at Seaport Global), Wall Street’s price targets just keep getting raised ahead of earnings. And this is not the first quarter either — it seems to be a recurring event almost every quarter.

As of this time, Netflix shares have risen 41% year-to-date and the stock is up 91% over the last year. And that 500% or so gain in the last three-year period (referenced above) was actually a 600% gain on last look and they are up well over 1,000% over the last decade.

Tactical Bulls cannot ignore the mass-analyst cluster here calling for even more upside quarter after quarter. It might even make some fearful for the day when Netflix really does disappoint or if investors worry that the number of humans on planet earth will finally set limitations to its growth.

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Netflix already has a $535 billion market cap — about 2.5-times that of The Walt Disney Company (NYSE: DIS) but less than one-fourth the market cap of its much larger streaming rival Amazon.com inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN). The key difference between comparing Netflix to either Disney or Amazon is that Netflix is a pure-play on media and streaming while Disney and Amazon have much broader operations beyond media/streaming.

Tactical Bulls always warns investors that no single analyst report should ever be used as the sole reason to buy or sell a stock. How that interpretation applies when almost every single analyst is issuing one-way price targets is up to each investor. Just remember that no analyst report ever comes with any money-back guarantees if there are losses.

So, here is how Wall Street has lined up behind Netflix since the start of June…

July 17 — Netflix was reiterated as Outperform at Bernstein, price target raised to $1,390 from $1,200.

July 15 — Netflix was reiterated as Outperform, price target raised to $1,425 from $1,200 by BMO Capital Markets.

July 14 — Netflix was reiterated as Outperform, price target maintained at $1,400 at Wedbush Securities.

July 11 — Netflix was reiterated as Overweight at Piper Sandler, price target raised to $1,400 from $1,150; Netflix was maintained as Neutral at JP Morgan, price target raised to $1,230 from $1,220; Netflix was reiterated as Buy at Needham, price target raised to $1,500 from $1,126.

July 10 — Netflix was reiterated as Overweight at KeyBanc Capital Markets, price target raised to $1,390 from $1,070.

July 9 — Netflix was maintained as Equal-Weight at Barclays, price target raised to $1,100 from $1,000.

July 2 — Netflix was maintained as Neutral at Goldman Sachs, price target raised to $1,140 from $1,000; Netflix was reiterated as Buy at Canaccord Genuity, price target raised to $1,525 from $1,380.

June 20 — Netflix was reiterated as Buy at Pivotal Research, price target raised to $1,600 from $1,350; Netflix was reiterated as Overweight at Wells Fargo, price target raised to $1,500 from $1,222; and Morgan Stanley reiterated its Overweight rating and its $1,200 price target.

June 20 — Netflix was reiterated as Buy at independent research firm Argus, and its price target was raised to $1,410 from $1,200.

June 12 — Netflix was reiterated as Outperform at Oppenheimer, price target raised to $1,425 from $1,200.

June 4 — Netflix was reiterated as Buy at UBS, price target raised to $1,450 from $1,150.

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At $1,259 heading into earnings, Netflix has a 52-week range of $587.04 to $1,341.15. Its consensus analyst price target is closer to $1,275.00.