Back in October 2014, billionaire investor Mark Cuban very publicly declared he was long Netflix. Cuban’s reasons at the time were pretty plainly put: he saw Netflix as a prime takeover target. That vision hasn’t come to pass (yet), but it hardly matters. When Cuban said he was adding 50,000 Netflix shares to his portfolio, the stock was trading at around $357 per share. “The value of Netlflix is so much more than its price,” Cuban wrote at the time. Looks like Cuban was right again. (The $343 increase on 50,000 shares would result in over $17 million profit, but Cuban already held some Netflix, which makes his profit easily top $20 million.)
Today Netflix shares are trading at around $700. Now with the company announcing a 7-for-1 stock split, there’s expected to be another bump up. (The rationale for this, shaky as it is, is that investors will find the stock more attractive at $100 than at $700. A little like why stores post prices of $9.99 instead of $10.00 — it’s an inconsequential distinction, but emotionally it works.) Netflix has 60 million streaming subscribers. It still has no obvious suitors, but Cuban’s big bet apparently doesn’t require one.
