Goldman Sachs just issued the most bullish call yet on Netflix
One of the biggest banks on Wall Street just made a wild prediction about Netflix.
Goldman Sachs raised its 12-month price target for the streaming company by 17.5% to $235, the highest rating among analysts tracked by Bloomberg. Netflix is trading 1.74% higher after Goldman released the new target.
Netflix is scheduled to report earnings on Monday, and Goldman says the rest of Wall Street is underestimating the company's potential.
"We believe consensus subscriber estimates for Netflix ahead of Monday's earnings remain too low," Goldman wrote in a note to clients. "While we are considerably above consensus (13.9 million net subscriber adds in the second half of 2017 vs. FactSet consensus of 10.8 million) and don't expect management to guide to our forecast, we do believe management is likely to exceed those forecasts."
Netflix announced a price increase for its subscribers earlier this month. The price hikes won't affect many users until November, but they did send a number of analysts on Wall Street to raise their price targets and re-evaluate the company ahead of its earnings.
The average price target for the 45 analysts tracked by Bloomberg is currently $200.85, which is about 1% higher than Netflix's current price of $198.96, but many of the more recent estimates are more bullish. About 74% of analysts who issued new research since Netflix raised its prices are bullish, according to data from Bloomberg.
Goldman said it set the ambitious $235 price target because it sees other firms generally underestimating Netflix. If Netflix reports its earnings and beats many of Wall Street's estimates, analysts will revise their price targets higher which will drive Netflix's stock higher as well, according to Goldman.
"While high expectations, particularly in light of the price increase, could lead to volatility post results, we believe upward revisions to consensus estimates will ultimately drive further outperformance and remain Buy rated," Goldman said.
Many analysts point to the company's rising prices as a way for Netflix to increase its spending on new content. Good content is often seen as a driver of new subscriptions.
Netflix is facing a wave of new competition, however. Competitors have been trying to find a way to grab their own piece of Netflix's success. Companies like Apple, CBS, Amazon, Hulu, Disney and others are producing original content to place exclusively behind their own paywalls.
Goldman increased its price target by 17.5% on Friday. Netflix is up 56% this year.
