Will Netflix Announce a Stock Split on Thursday?

For a company that often releases an entire season of a show at the same time, Netflix (NASDAQ: NFLX) knows that its audience doesn't like to wait. Netflix investors will have to show some patience this earnings season. The world's top premium video service will report its first-quarter results on Thursday afternoon. With the market closed on Friday, investors will have to wait four days to gauge the market's reaction on Monday morning of next week.

Giving the market a full extended trading holiday to ponder a telltale release isn't a problem. Investing should be a crock pot, and not a microwave oven. However, it does lead one to wonder if the extra time could inspire the digital flick flicker to do something it hasn't done in a long time. Is Netflix ready to announce its first stock split in nearly 10 years?

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It's a numbers game

Netflix takes its stock splits seriously. It has now been trading publicly for almost 23 years, and it has only given its investors a pair of stock splits. There was a 2-for-1 move in February 2004, less than two years after Netflix started trading. It declared a more ambitious 7-for-1 split in the summer of 2015.

The shares are trading substantially higher than they were at either of the previous split decisions. It's also a different time. There's no longer the same kind of pressure that there was two decades ago to keep a stock at an accessible double-digit price point. This doesn't mean that it would be a bad idea for a stock split. Let's just go over a few of the reasons why a stock split could be more than just a zero-sum game for Netflix.

• The ease of buying fractional shares these days doesn't make it prohibitive for individual investors to buy into a stock like Netflix that's approaching $1,000, but it is a high barrier in the options market since those contracts represent a round lot of 100 shares apiece. Someone would have to own nearly $100,000 worth of Netflix to execute a single covered call, for example.
• A couple of years ago, the titans of tech wore their rising price tags as vanity plates. That trend has reversed. Three of the country's four most valuable companies have declared stock splits over the past five years.
• Netflix isn't likely to be added to the Dow 30 anytime soon, but it's certainly not going to happen with its current sticker price. The Dow 30 is a price-weighted index, so Netflix's moves would impact the index at nearly double the pace of its priciest component. Netflix's sensitivity would be almost 5 times greater than its most valuable component.

The list is shorter for reasons not to split, because there is no reason to keep its stock price high.

Image source: Getty Images.

A split could be another strong report away

Netflix shares nearly doubled last year. The stock moved higher again after a blowout report last time out. The stock's pop fell short of crossing the $1,000 mark in response to the strong numbers, but it happened briefly a month later when Netflix didn't have anything material to announce. The stock is back in the high triple digits, and this time the shares find themselves less than 3% away from crossing into four figures.

If the board at Netflix feels it has a good report coming, it would be surprising if a stock split hasn't been discussed. The premium streaming pioneer's guidance back in January called for first-quarter revenue rising 11% to $10.4 billion. The outlook called for earnings to rise at half that clip, clocking in at $5.58 a share.

This may not seem like a strong report for a company that has seen its stock more than double since the start of last year. However, analysts are currently perched above the targets Netflix laid out for the first quarter. Wall Street pros are now modeling a profit of $5.66 a share with $10.5 billion on the top line. This may seem aggressive, but Netflix beat earnings estimates in each of the four previous reports. Momentum is on its side.

Investors shouldn't be buying into Netflix ahead of Thursday afternoon's financial update on the expectation that a stock split will send their positions even higher. Netflix will have to earn those upticks with a strong report. However, it's probably an ideal time to make it happen. It would be a mic drop moment heading into three days of trading silence during the extended market break. Netflix loves it when viewers binge-watch, but sometimes it's the anticipation that really gets audiences going.

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Rick Munarriz has positions in Netflix. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Netflix. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.