Netflix stock crashes after streamer misses EPS consensus by 8%

Netflix stock shed 9% afterhours on Thursday.
The streamer missed GAAP EPS consensus by a noticeable amount.
Company's Q2 forecast underwhelms Wall Street analysts.
Q1 revenue beats consensus by $80 million.

Clay Webster FXStreet

Netflix (NFLX) stock sank over 9% late Thursday after the king of streaming missed Wall Street's consensus earnings estimate for the first quarter.

Netflix issued GAAP EPS of $1.23, which missed the consensus by $0.11. NFLX sank from its close at $107.88 to momentarily below $98.00.

Revenue was a bright spot. The company printed sales of $12.25 billion, up 16% YoY. That figure beat the consensus by $80 million.

However, Netflix lowered its outlook for the second quarter to below consensus. Executives now estimate Q2 sales of $12.57 billion versus analyst consensus of $12.63 billion. Likewise, they forecast Q2 GAAP EPS $0.78 versus the prior consensus of $0.84.

"We expect Q2 to have the highest [YoY] content amortization growth rate in 2026, before decelerating to mid-to-high single digit growth in the second half of the year," Netflix said in a statement. "As a result, we forecast Q2 operating margin of 32.6% compared with 34.1% in the year ago quarter. We expect year-over-year operating margin growth in Q3 and Q4 in order to deliver our 2026 margin target."

Q1 saw an operating margin of 32.3%, which was higher than the year earlier mark of 31.7%. For the

"Our full year 2026 guidance is unchanged: we forecast 2026 revenue of $50.7 billion-$51.7 billion, which represents 12%-14% growth (11%-13% F/X neutral), driven by continued healthy membership growth, pricing and a projected rough doubling of our ads revenue," Netflix said in their press release.

Netflix 4H stock chart — NFLX 4-hour stock chart

Author

Clay Webster

FXStreet

Clay Webster grew up in the US outside Buffalo, New York and Lancaster, Pennsylvania. He began investing after college following the 2008 financial crisis.

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