Netflix profit increases, shares down

Netflix might have seen its profit soar by a whopping 88% during the first quarter as the movie rental company increased its global subscriber base by another 3.6 million people, but that does not mean it is doing well on the stock exchange at all. In fact, the company’s shares actually went through a tough battering in after-hours trading, dropping by 5% after the company projected that its profits next quarter will not be as high as Wall Street traders hoped that they would be.

Pretty strange timing, don’t you think so? Could probably be due to the fact that investors might want to take their profit and run after seeing the price of Netflix stock actually rising by 40% in 2011 alone. 

Netflix’s Q1 performance actually earned $1.11 per share on revenue of $718.6 million, which surpassed Wall Street’s expectation of $1.08 a share on revenue of $704 million. The profit that the company made was $60.2 million – and that is nearly double of what it brought into its coffers a year back at $32.3 million. Well, what is your take on it? Will Netflix continue to maintain its bull run on Wall Street, or will continuous profit taking see its share drop in due time?