It was just early July when the streaming video giant’s stock was flirting with new record highs. After an unexpected loss of subscribers and increased competition in the streaming war, shares of Netflix erased all of its 46% gain for the year at its peak and officially entered negative territory on Monday.
Netflix has been haunted by nonstop bad news in the past few months. First, its most popular show “The Office” was stripped from its platform by NBC. Then, Netflix was hit by a rare loss in U.S. subscribers and a large miss on international subscriber adds in the second quarter, which sent the stock plunging and suffering its longest losing streak in five years.
A slew of announcements from media companies launching their own streaming services — Apple, Disney, AT&T’s WarnerMedia, NBC — came as a last straw for the struggling stock.
Most of Netflix’s gains for 2019 came from a big pop in January when the company flexed its pricing power. It raised prices by 13% to 18% then and the stock soared. In a more crowded streaming space today, hiking prices may not be so welcomed by investors again.
