The Bureau of Historic Losses · Counterfactual Division
What if you'd bought Netflix in 2011?
Netflix spent the back half of 2011 detonating its own stock: a 60% price hike in July, then the doomed plan to spin DVDs into a separate company called Qwikster in September. Subscribers fled, the shares lost more than 70% from their peak, and the word 'Qwikster' became corporate shorthand for self-sabotage.
$100 on 2011-01-03, worth today
US$3,152
As of 2026-06-12, $100 of Netflix bought at 2011's open (US$2.55) is worth US$3,152 — 31.5×.
total return · dividends reinvested · USD
How much would $100 of Netflix bought in 2011 be worth today?
| You'd have put in | You'd have now | Multiple |
|---|---|---|
| US$100 | US$3,152 | 31.5× |
| US$1,000 | US$31,522 | 31.5× |
| US$10,000 | US$315,220 | 31.5× |
Lump sum on the year's first trading day, total return (dividends reinvested, splits adjusted), valued at the latest close. Past performance isn't a promise — it's a taunt.
What did Netflix do in 2011?
Opened
US$2.55
2011-01-03
Peaked
US$4.27
2011-07-13
Bottomed
US$0.912
2011-11-25
Closed
US$0.990
2011-12-30
Levels are dividend-adjusted, so historical figures look lower than the headline price of the day — that's the total-return lens, and it's the honest one.
Would steady buying have beaten going all in?
US$80,600 deployed as $100 a week from 2011-01-03, under four temperaments — same money, different nerves.
| All in on day one | US$2.5M |
| Steady weekly buys | US$970,904 |
| Sold dips, rebought rallies | US$974,203 |
| Traded it perfectly | US$15.1M |
“Traded it perfectly” requires knowing the future. Nobody knew the future.
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