Back in early December, I flagged intriguing price action in Netflix (NASDAQ:NFLX) after it continued bouncing off of $475 support. This resilient behavior was even more striking because the company had two disappointing earnings reports during this period. Yet, the stock refused to crash through support.
As I wrote in early December:
NFLX had two disappointing earnings reports…and the stock tumbled -6.5% and -6.9% the day after each earnings report. Yet here we stand, still within 10% of all-time highs.
Bad news and a resilient stock? That’s a textbook case for a stock that wants to go higher. Anything that refuses to go down will eventually go up. And right now, NFLX is acting like it wants to go back to the highs.
Fast forward a month and a half and yesterday, the company crushed quarterly earnings. The stock surged 12% in after-hours trade.
But this shouldn’t surprise anyone. Earnings are a game of expectations. Two disappointing quarterly reports in a row inevitably lower expectations. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.
And as anticipated, investors came into this earnings report with much lower expectations. But paradoxically, these lower expectations make it easy for the company to beat expectations. And that is exactly what happened Tuesday evening.
The first part of my analysis proved prophetic. But for readers that missed this move, you’ll be happy to read what I wrote next:
If [NFLX] gets back to the highs, expect it to keep on going.
And I stand by what I said then. NFLX’s six-month consolidation chased off most of the weak holders and the only owners left are the ones who believe in this company. Once the stock gets back to the highs, expect it to keep going.