Cathie Wood buys Netflix again. Here’s his rocky history with stocks.

• In 2026, Netflix (NFLX) once again attracted the attention of ARK Invest’s Cathie Wood, who piled into shares during post-earnings volatility that left the stock well below recent highs.

• His history with Netflix illustrates conviction, patience, and willingness to adapt when a thesis changes.

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netflix (NASDAQ: NFLX) attracted the attention of ARK Invest in 2026, and the fund accumulated shares during volatility that left the stock well below recent highs. On April 17, 2026, Netflix closed at $97.31, down 9.7% the day after a mixed earnings report. For Cathie Wood, immersion feels familiar.

Netflix’s first-quarter 2026 revenue was $12.25 billion, beating consensus estimates, but earnings per share of $1.23 missed the consensus estimate of $1.34. The post-earnings decline put it below its 200-day moving average of $105.88, a level that has historically attracted growth-oriented buyers. ARK’s re-entry fits that pattern. The company reaffirmed full-year 2026 revenue guidance of between $50.7 billion and $51.7 billion and raised free cash flow guidance to approximately $12.5 billion. The advertising business is accelerating: more than 60% of new registrations in advertising markets chose the ad-supported tier and the number of advertisers grew 70% year over year to more than 4,000 customers.

Netflix naturally aligned with ARK’s disruptive innovation framework. The thesis of cord cutting, global content dominance, and the collapse of linear television coincided with Wood’s worldview. Netflix stock has risen about 819% over the past decade, with significant gains while ARK held the stock as a core position. The streaming boom of 2020 validated the thesis and Netflix became an iconic name in both ARKK and ARKW.

READ: The analyst who called NVIDIA in 2010 just named its top 10 AI stocks

ARK aggressively cut Netflix in 2021, with reported single-day sales of $8 million and $39 million in August 2021. The timing proved prescient: Netflix’s collapse in 2022, driven by stagnating subscriber growth, was severe. Over the five-year period ending April 17, 2026, the stock gained 78.05% from a split-adjusted $54.65, obscuring the depth of the 2022 decline before the recovery. ARK’s exit reduced exposure before the worst decline, illustrating the difficulty of timing high multiple growth stocks.

What made Wood come back? The business has changed materially. Netflix moved from subscriber numbers to revenue per user, advertising and live events. Advertising revenue is on track to reach approximately $3 billion by 2026, doubling year over year. Live programming, including the Canelo-Crawford fight that drew more than 41 million viewers, signals a new layer of content. The stock’s trailing P/E of 31x is still elevated, but falls below the 2020 multiples Wood was willing to pay.

Wood’s history at Netflix shows that even the most convinced investors revisit names after the thesis is reset. Analysts at Morgan Stanley, JPMorgan and Bank of America have maintained Buy-equivalent ratings following April’s earnings decline, with a consensus price target of $114.46. Retail investors should not mechanically follow ARK’s movements. Wood’s background structure and time horizon differ from most people’s. Her Netflix arc illustrates conviction, patience, and a willingness to adapt when a story changes.

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