Here's How Much Investing $1,000 In Netflix Stock 5 Years Ago Would Be Worth Today

Investors who owned stocks since 2016 generally experienced some big gains. In fact, the SPDR S&P 500 SPY total return in the past five years is 120.4%. But there’s no question some big-name stocks performed better than others along the way.

Netflix’s Big Run: One market leader of the past five years was Netflix, Inc. NFLX.

In the past decade, Netflix has been one of the top performers in the entire stock market. It's by far the most successful streaming video service in the world. According to eMarketer, Netflix had 168.9 million U.S. subscription video viewers in 2020, more than Amazon.com, Inc.'s AMZN Amazon Prime Video (130.1 million), Hulu (94.5 million), Walt Disney Co's DIS Disney+ (72.4 million) and others.

In the past five years, Netflix’s story has shifted away from domestic subscriber growth and third-party content deals toward heavy investment in original content, international expansion and subscription price hikes.

Incredibly, Netflix started 2016 trading at just $109. Within weeks of the beginning of that year, the stock hit its low point of the past five years at just $79.95. Netflix returned to the $100 level by mid-2016 and hit $200 for the first time by the end of 2017. The stock topped out at $423.21 in mid-2018 before taking roughly a two-year breather.

Investors were concerned about the combination of rising content costs and incoming competition from Disney and others.

Related Link: Netflix Reports Q4 Sales Beat, Paid Memberships Up 21.9% YoY

Netflix In 2021, Beyond: Netflix shares were once again knocking on the door of $400 when the COVID-19 pandemic hit in early 2020. The stock briefly dipped as low as $290.25 amid broad market weakness before investors began to realize how much a shelter-in-place environment could boost Netflix’s business.

The stock soon broke out to new all-time highs, topping out at $575.37 during the summer of 2020 before pulling back to around $500 today.

Netflix investors who held on through a volatile few years were rewarded for their patience, and $1,000 worth of Netflix shares bought in 2016 would be worth about $4,786 today.

Looking ahead, analysts expect Netflix to continue to march higher in the next 12 months. The average price target among the 37 analysts covering the stock is $580.60, suggesting 16.6% upside from current levels.