"Best not to do as in the Netflix movie, but watch out"

Everyone is talking about Netflix's downfall.

So on film.

Of course, I am referring to Netflix's latest major investment in self-produced film, "Don´t Look Up", which ends with the whole earth collapsing in a spectacular meteorite crash.

At the same time as this crash is being streamed fully - so far 353 million hours since its premiere on December 5 - the very origin of it, Netflix, is crashing on the stock exchange.

The price has plummeted by more than 20 percent during the day, since Netflix released its financial statements after the New York Stock Exchange closed on Thursday night.

It was not the profit figures that were wrong: they were about as the stock analysts had expected.

No, it was about the influx of customers in the future.

Netflix expects 2.5 million new subscribers in the first quarter of this year.

This is significantly less than the stock market had expected.

And, of course, only a fraction of the number of subscribers that flocked to when the world shut down in 2020. In total, Netflix now has 222 million customers.

But now the stock market seems to fear that people will not be forced to stay at home at their screens for that long.

The competition is getting tougher

There are more explanations for Netflix's expected growth than expecting the world's population to soon leave the living room sofas completely without rules.

Competition has also intensified.

More streaming services are fighting harder and harder for our time.

But Netflix competitors, such as Disney, and here at home Nent with Viaplay and TV3, also fell sharply on the stock market today.

Today's race for the Netflix share is not an isolated event.

The tech giants in New York, where Netflix belongs, have been struggling on the stock market since last fall, in some cases even longer.

Since the turn of the year, Facebook, Apple and Alphapet (Google) have fallen by 7-8 percent.

Amazon has fallen by 12 percent and Netflix 33 percent.

Tesla has fallen 10 percent.

Of these, however, only Amazon and Netflix are behind if you look back a year.

The anxiety is growing

The courses for tech giants like these rushed when the pandemic broke out and it was clear that both work and private life would be handled in front of screens, which required electronic equipment, data capacity, and a variety of Internet-based services.

But then inflation rose.

Interest rate hikes were feared, which is automatically bad for companies with rapid growth and profits well into the future embedded in stock prices.

That unrest has gained new momentum now.

There were many, including myself, who expected that inflation and interest rate turmoil would start to bite the stock market almost a year ago.

Since then, the clouds of unrest have only gotten darker.

Inflation has risen to 4 percent in Sweden.

We think that is a lot, but in the US it is 7 percent.

There, interest rate hikes from the central bank are now approaching by leaps and bounds.

Maybe it will be already in March.

But listed companies' profits have exceeded expectations since the first pandemic summer.

And the stimulus money that the central banks poured out over the financial market to halt a potential financial crisis at the beginning of the pandemic has ultimately set the stock market on fire.

Best to watch out for

Now, however, the central banks will withdraw their money.

And, as I said, raising interest rates.

It is in itself a sign of full speed in the economy and that the pandemic is over, purely financially.

But this increases uncertainty when it comes to growth stocks.

At the same time, there are, paradoxically, problems that are increasing in the stock market turmoil and which are about the pandemic continuing.

This applies to omikron: if it is possible to get rid of it without there being continued, prolonged shutdowns, perhaps aggravated bottleneck problems, or low demand.

Best not to do as in the Netflix movie, but really watch out!