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Conway Gittens: I’m Conway Gittens reporting from the New York Stock Exchange. Here’s what we’re watching on TheStreet today.
Earnings season is keeping a fire under the stock market Wednesday - with the S&P 500 now flirting with a record high. United Airlines beat sales and profit forecasts and gave a robust 2025 outlook. It’s filling up seats all over the plane. Procter and Gamble also beat expectations thanks to solid demand for staples like toilet paper.
Related: Netflix betting millions on genius new content
Keeping with the corporate theme, Netflix (NFLX) is boosting prices - again. The ad-free Standard plan is going to $17.99 from $15.49 a month; that’s a jump of $2.50. Meanwhile, the ad-supported plan is going up by a dollar to $7.99 a month from $6.99; its first price hike since the tier was launched. The price for the Premium family plan is rising two bucks to $24.99 a month.
So why are prices going up again? Netflix told investors in a fourth-quarter earnings update, “As we continue to invest in programming and deliver more value for our members, we will occasionally ask our members to pay a little more so that we can re-invest to further improve Netflix.”
The price-hikes come amid the biggest net new subscriber gains in the company’s history. 18.9 million people signed up for Netflix across the globe in just the fourth quarter, that’s 10 million more people than expected.
Those gangbuster numbers reflect big early wins for Netflix as it spreads into live programming. The Mike Tyson-Jake Paul fight drew an average global audience of more than 100 million. The NFL Christmas Day games, with Beyonce as the half-time act, drew 65 million viewers. But It’s not just live programming. Squid Game, Season 2 is the third-most watched series for Netflix globally. Having content that resonates comes with a cost, leading Netflix down the road to another price hike.
That’ll do it for your Daily Briefing. From the New York Stock Exchange, I’m Conway Gittens with TheStreet.
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