Netflix Inc. investors punished the company for its shock loss in subscribers and abrupt turnabout to embrace advertising after years of shunning it.
Shares of the streaming leader plunged 35%, erasing $54 billion of market value in its biggest drop since 2004. The swoon made Netflix the worst-performing stock of the year on both the benchmark S&P 500 and Nasdaq 100 indexes and sent shock waves across the media universe, sinking Warner Bros. Discovery Inc., Roku Inc. and others.
Netflix is seeking ways to stop a loss of subscribers and combat investor fears that its best days are over. Co-founder Reed Hastings had said for years that he doesn’t want to offer advertising and had no problems with password sharing.
