Netflix: Sometimes You Get Lucky

July 6th, 2011

I don’t pretend to have any investing ability, having lost a fair amount during the first .com implosion and our humble semblance of a retirement still bearing bumps and bruises from 2008. The only “smart” individual stock pick made in the past few years has been Apple. Not-so-great ones have been Whole Foods, GE and Del Monte (don’t ask).

Someday I might be able to add Netflix to the list of winners. I picked up some earlier this year, not expecting it to equal past performance, but based on really loving the service while essentially ignoring the business fundamentals. But YTD it’s surpassed Apple (which has remained essentially flat) and just yesterday, following an expansion into Latin America, had a ludicrous pop of about 6% in a day. As of this writing it’s at $290.

Anyhow. With stocks you have a fifty-fifity chance of being ahead, but the dangerous part is when one starts thinking any gains are an indication of superior intellect. I must remind myself often, the brutal experience of watching once-profitable investments going in the opposite direction and feeling like an total idiot. The gains don’t exist until the investment is sold.

Perhaps a good — although completely unscientific — NFLX sell point would be if a share reaches AAPL. I’m thinking around $325. And I suppose this post is a personal reminder to actually follow through and limit involvement in any further bubbly nonsense.

Well, at least until the Facebook IPO.