Earlier this year Harvard Business School professors Aiyesha Dey and Joseph Pacelli published their case study, “Bear to Bull: An Analyst’s Journey with Netflix” on Equity Research Analyst, Michael Pachter’s journey covering streaming giant, Netflix and its logic-defying rise and eventual pull back.

The case study focuses on Pachter’s consistently wrong negative call on Netflix from 2011 to 2021, as the stock price rose 2500%. During that time Pachter raised numerous red flags, as outlined by the case study, about the streaming giant predicting that competition and the reliance on being a content distributor versus a content creator would eventually catch up with Netflix. Those red flags did eventually come to fruition, but significantly later than Pachter predicted.

The publication of “Bear to Bull” was part of the course of study in Financial Reporting & Control at Harvard Business School, a course that recently had Michael as a guest speaker to illustrate how some companies report items differently from others.

The full case study with in-depth analysis and more from Michael on his Netflix journey is available from the Harvard Business School at store.hbr.org.

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