When I first started investing I had heard all the stories about investors buying a little known stock that emerged into an industry giant and making them a fortune in the process. Well, my story with NetFlix (NFLX) is not quite like that because, up until now, I have never invested real money in the stock. Oh I remember vividly walking into a Blockbuster and them telling me I would have to pay fees for hurting the disc of a movie that I did not even rent. That is when I started using Netflix online to rent movies. NetFlix would send you 3 movies by mail and then you would watch them and then send them back to get the next movies in your que.
Not long after, the stock went public at around $15 (this would be much lower after all their splits) a share. I did not have any money at the time, but I told family and friends about the stock but nobody bought it. As the years went by, Netlix stock started rising and I started making money in my own business (GameOgre.com) that had nothing to do with stocks or NetFlix. Thus, when I did have the money to invest in NetFlix the valuation was too high or so I thought at the time since I previously ran the GarpInvestor.com site and worked at WallStreetCity.com for Telescan in Houston, Texas. Instead, I ended up buying 100 shares of a little mobile game stock that went nowhere.
Years later, I finally “bought” Netflix along with the likes of Nvidia and TASR now AXON on Think or Swim at Ameritrade with paper money or as one of my favorite people ever called it: “Monopoly Money”. If it had been real money invested in just those three stocks alone and then never sold, there is no telling how much money I would have made. In fact, the main reason I can’t tell exactly how much I would have made is that I just found out this week that the paper money accounts were wiped when Charles Schwab bought Ameritrade.
All that said, NetFlix is now trading at $685.87 and is the undisputed king of streaming media (long way from renting movies by mail) as no other company nor stock is doing even close to what NetFlix is doing. In fact, NetFlix is the best performing company and stock in any media and should only rise from here as their is not a real strong competitor in sight. Simply put, if NetFlix wants to something special like a Tom Brady Roast or a major Sport event etc, it will likely outbid everybody else because it can. Despite the dramatic run-up since it has been a publicly-traded company that awesome advantage is just too great for any investor to ignore!