Netflix, Inc. NFLX hit a new 52-week high of $122.79, increasing 7.6% yesterday, following a target price increase by Guggenheim Securities. The research firm set a 12-month target price of $160 and provided a ‘Buy’ rating.
Guggenheim has cited the company’s strong fundamentals, sound business strategy, attractive valuation and most importantly growing subscriber base as the key factors leading to the increase in target price.
In the year-to-date time frame, Netflix has returned over 148.2% compared with the S&P 500’s return of 1.7% in the same period. On Jul 14, the company made a 7:1 stock split after increasing its share authorization from 170 million to 5 billion (including preferred stock). Since then, shares have surged a robust 21.4%.
Netflix is focused on achieving rapid international expansion to boost its subscriber base. In the recently reported quarter, Netflix recorded 3.3 million new members as against 1.7 million in the prior-year quarter. In total, Netflix now has over 65 million subscribers across the globe. Recently, the company announced the commencement of its operations in Japan from this September. It aims to enter over 100 new markets by 2016-end.
Positive estimate revisions over the past 30 days have pushed up the Zacks Consensus Estimate for fiscal 2015 by 18% to 26 cents.
Currently, Netflix has a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). Better-ranked stocks include AMC Networks Inc. AMCX, Gray Television, Inc. GTN and Amazon.com Inc. AMZN. All three sport a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy)
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