23 May 2002: Netflix goes public at $15
Netflix, then a DVD-by-mail rental company, began trading on Nasdaq on May 23, 2002 at $15 a share. The dot-com crash was still fresh and few investors were excited. Blockbuster had earlier passed on a chance to buy Netflix. The company later moved to streaming and then to making its own shows, and its stock became one of the best performers of the following two decades.
The lesson: Unloved IPOs in gloomy markets can be the best opportunities, because nobody is paying for hope.
What it meant for investors
$1,000 in Netflix at the start of 2003 → $1,466,667 today, vs $7,727 in the S&P 500.
We start the clock at the start of 2003, the first year in our price data after the event. That is 1466.7 times the money, and $1,458,939 more than a plain index fund made over the same years.
What Netflix teaches: Huge winners rarely feel safe while you hold them; Netflix suffered several drawdowns of over 50 percent, and each one tested whether investors believed the strategy.
| Bought in | Price then | Worth today | S&P 500 would be |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2003 | $0.75 | $1,466,667 | $7,727 |
| 2005 | $1.70 | $647,059 | $5,763 |
| 2007 | $3.60 | $305,556 | $4,789 |
green = beat the S&P 500 · red = lost money
What if you bought Netflix? Every starting year and the full story →
More Netflix history
Could you have called it at the time? The wheel picks the year, you pick the position, ten seconds a pick.
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