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NETFLIX Free Resources
Blockbuster i...
Blockbuster is close behind. The nation's biggest video rental chain recently began testing an in-store subscription service that offers unlimited rentals for a fixed fee and, Hastings says, has invested in Netflix rival DVDRentalCentral.com. "I encourage you to take Can Netflix Keep Spinning Gold?
Where will you rent your next DVD? Chances grow daily you'll get it from Netflix (NFLX ), one of the hottest spots in internet retailing. Netflix subscribers pay $19.95 monthly to order movies online. They may pick as many as three DVDs at a time and keep them as long as they like. Once they return them the same way they came, via postage-paid mail, subscribers may order more. A year ago, 560,000 people did this. By yearend, their ranks had grown to 796,000. By April, paying subscribers topped 1 million.
As you might suspect, Netflix is one hot stock. Near $20 a share, it's up by a third since its initial public offering last May. This year, it has doubled. All the heat has ignited a battle over the future of Netflix and that other place people rent lots of movies, Blockbuster. While Netflix partisans post message-board intimations of mortality for Blockbuster, the bears are all over Netflix, with short interest rising all year. Of the short-sellers, Netflix Chief Financial Officer Barry McCarthy snaps: "I wish they would all die." It's almost as if Wall Street is filming a sequel to that boffo hit from a few years back, Amazon.com vs. Barnes & Noble. Fans of such investment adventures can guess the ending: Both companies survive their clash, but one turns out to be a better investment.
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