July 2023 Netflix Stock

College classroom students. College classroom students

Right, gather round, because July 2023 was the month Netflix decided to stop being the punchline of every investor joke and started being the kid at school who suddenly aces every exam without revising. After a wobbly 2022 that saw the streaming giant shed subscribers faster than Brits shed umbrellas in a heatwave, Netflix's share price spent July doing something rather cheeky: climbing. By the time the dust settled on the month, the stock had swaggered upwards, buoyed by a cracking earnings report in mid-July that revealed the company's cunning plans were actually, well, working. Investors who'd spent the previous year hiding behind the sofa like nervous Doctor Who fans were suddenly peeking out and nodding approvingly.

The Password-Sharing Crackdown Nobody Thought Would Work

Let's be honest: for years, we all knew someone's cousin's flatmate who was "borrowing" a Netflix login, and Netflix knew it too. So when the company announced it would finally crack down on password sharing, the internet responded with the digital equivalent of a toddler tantrum. Surely people would cancel in droves! Surely this was corporate self-sabotage of the highest order! And yet, come July's Q2 earnings, the paid-sharing scheme turned out to be a money-printing machine rather than a mass exodus. Shares jumped sharply after the results dropped, because apparently the threat of losing access to your mum's account was enough to make millions of people reach for their wallets. Turns out people complain loudly but pay up quietly. Who knew?

Ad Tiers and Shiny Numbers: The Plot Twist Everyone Saw Coming, Eventually

Not content with milking freeloaders, Netflix's cheaper advertising-supported tier also started pulling its weight, attracting sign-ups like a bank holiday barbecue attracts wasps. Add to that a breakout little Korean drama called Squid Game still warming the books, a steady churn rate, and subscriber numbers that actually beat expectations, and suddenly the stock was strutting around July like it owned the place. Of course, there was the small matter of the Hollywood writers' and actors' strikes kicking off mid-month, threatening future content pipelines, but investors seemed perfectly happy to worry about that in August. Classic investors. The result? July 2023 marked a proper turnaround moment for Netflix shares, and the streets of Wall Street briefly smelled of popcorn and smug vindication.