Netflix Shares Slide Nearly 10% in After-Hours Trading Following Q2 Results

July 17: Netflix shares fell sharply in after-hours trading on Thursday, extending losses even as the streaming giant closed the regular session higher ahead of its second-quarter earnings release. 

The stock was last seen at $67.16 in the extended session as of 5:23 am ET, down $7.19 or 9.67% from Thursday’s closing price. That marks a sharp reversal from the regular session, when Netflix, listed on the Nasdaq and a Nasdaq 100 constituent, closed at $74.35, up $0.67 or 0.91%. 

The after-hours bid stood at $67.05 with an ask of $67.20, reflecting active two-sided trading as investors digested the company’s latest results. Volume in the extended session topped 822,000 shares, a marked pickup from typical after-hours activity, underscoring the scale of the reaction to the earnings print. 

With Thursday’s after-hours slide, Netflix shares moved well below the stock’s 52-week range of $70.86 to $127.75, putting the stock on track to mark a fresh 52-week low when regular trading resumes. The move represents one of the steeper single-session drops for the stock in recent quarters and comes despite Netflix’s quarterly performance broadly matching its own prior guidance. 

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The sell-off suggests investors were looking beyond the headline numbers and focusing instead on forward commentary around engagement, advertising, and margin trends for the back half of the year. Netflix has faced this pattern before: shares have moved sharply after past earnings reports even when reported results were in line with company guidance, as the market weighs qualitative commentary on member engagement and content slate strength alongside the numbers themselves. 

Netflix’s after-hours reaction will be closely watched heading into Friday’s regular session, with traders likely to parse the company’s shareholder letter and its executives’ comments during Thursday’s post-earnings interview for further clues on the trajectory of advertising revenue, membership growth, and content spending for the remainder of 2026. 

The stock’s slide also comes at a time when the broader streaming sector remains under scrutiny, with investors increasingly attentive to how legacy players and newer entrants alike are managing engagement, content costs, and the build-out of advertising businesses. 

Thursday’s move is also notable in the context of Netflix’s ten-for-one forward stock split, which took effect on November 14, 2025. The split brought the stock down to a lower per-share price band, and Thursday’s after-hours fall of more than $7 a share represents a proportionally larger hit than it would have appeared on a pre-split basis, even though the percentage decline of roughly 9.67% remains the more relevant measure of the scale of the sell-off. 

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Extended-hours trading in Netflix shares tends to be thinner than during the regular session, meaning price moves can be more volatile and less reflective of where the stock ultimately settles once full-session liquidity returns on Friday. Even so, a near 10% swing after hours is a significant repricing for a stock of Netflix’s size and will be watched for follow-through once regular trading resumes. 

Q2 Revenue Rises 13% to $12.56 Bn, Narrows Full-Year Outlook 

Netflix reported second-quarter revenue of $12.56 billion, up 13% year over year, or 12% on a foreign-exchange neutral basis, the company said in its shareholder letter dated July 16, 2026. The company said the growth was driven primarily by membership growth, pricing and increased advertising revenue. 

Operating income for the quarter came in at $4.19 billion, up 11% year over year, with an operating margin of 33.4%, compared with 34.1% in the year-ago quarter. Diluted earnings per share stood at $0.80, up from $0.72 in the same quarter last year, an increase of about 11%. Net income for the quarter was $3.40 billion. 

Netflix said all regions delivered double-digit revenue growth in the quarter. Revenue crossed $4.0 billion in EMEA and $1.5 billion in both LATAM and APAC for the first time. United States and Canada (UCAN) revenue grew 10% year over year to $5.43 billion, which the company said reflected only a partial-quarter impact from its recent price change in the region. 

For the third quarter, Netflix guided to revenue growth of 12%, or 11% on an FX-neutral basis, driven by growth in memberships, pricing and advertising revenue, along with an operating margin of 33.2%, compared with 28.2% a year earlier. 

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For the full year 2026, Netflix narrowed its revenue forecast to a range of $51.0 billion to $51.4 billion, representing growth of 13% to 14%, and maintained its operating margin outlook of 31.5%, consistent with prior guidance. The company said it continues to expect its advertising revenue to roughly double to approximately $3 billion for the year. 

On engagement, Netflix said view hours grew 2% in the first half of 2026, faster than 1.5% growth in 2025, despite competition from the Winter Olympics and the World Cup. The company highlighted strong performance from its original slate, including Harlan Coben’s I Will Find You, its most-viewed new original series debut of 2026 so far, and the animated film Swapped, which is on track to become its second most-viewed original animated film ever. 

Netflix repurchased $4.7 billion of its stock during the quarter, its largest quarterly buyback to date, and had $27.1 billion remaining under its existing repurchase authorization as of the end of the quarter.  

Sources

• Nasdaq
• Company data