NFLX Q1 beat, Q2 guide soft, Hastings off the board. Timeline in one place
u/Rare_Ad6128 ·
Reddit — r/stocks
· April 18, 2026 at 17:43
· ⬆ 23 pts
· 💬 8 comments
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Netflix had a lot happen in like 36 hours so i'm putting it all together here.
Thursday night they drop the Q1 8-K. Revenue $12.25B, a beat. On paper Q1 looks solid, 16% growth and a 32% operating margin. Problem is $2.8B of the profit line is a termination fee from the Warner Bros acquisition Netflix tried to do for $42B that collapsed earlier this month. Take that out and its just a normal quarter.
Then Friday the 10-Q lands with the Q2 guide, and the guide is soft. Operating margins YoY going lower, which is the part that pissed people off (myself included, Im long a little). Slowest revenue growth in a year too.
And then tucked in the filings: Reed Hastings stepping off the board in June. 29 years. Didnt even lead with it, which is kind of insane honestly, you bury a co-founder departure?
Stock fell \~9% after hours Thursday, kept bleeding Friday.
My two cents, the $3B WBD fee made the headline print look better than the underlying business, and now that investors have actually opened the 10-Q they don't like what they see. Hastings walking the same night just stacks a second problem on top. Also tbh the whole ad-tier strategy was supposed to juice margins not compress them so what exactly is the plan here.
Holding for now. Selling into a down-9 print feels dumb and I'm not adding either.