Netflix Faces a Weak Year as Wells Fargo Cuts Target

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•  18 Sep 2026
 

$NFLX Netflix falls about 4.2% to around $72 after Wells Fargo cuts its rating from Equal Weight to Underweight and lowers its price target from $80 to $57. The new target is about 24% below the latest closing price and about 21% below the stocks intraday price. Wells Fargo says weaker viewing is making a recovery harder and that Netflix needs new hits to restore audience interest. The catalyst puts earnings momentum, institutional flows, and positioning under greater scrutiny.

Even before the latest decline, Netflix was down nearly 20% since the start of 2026 and is heading toward its weakest year since 2022, when the stock fell 51%. The company is dealing with lower viewing levels and competition from services such as Hulu and Disney. Wells Fargo is not convinced that the lower price makes the stock a buying opportunity. The Underweight rating reflects an expectation that the stock will underperform the banks benchmark or peer group, while the nearly 29% target reduction signals that the risks are still not fully reflected in the price.

Wells Fargo analyst Steven Cahall points to concerning trends in viewer engagement. According to Wells Fargo, adjusted viewing volume in the first half of the year was about 8% below the first half of 2023. Cahall estimates that about 20% of viewing hours come from the top 100 titles and views this content as an important component of the value subscribers receive from the service. The concern is that expanding Netflix into a platform with a broader content selection will not compensate for a shortage of original series and films that become hits and attract broad attention.

The distinction is between having a large library and having content people feel they must watch. A subscriber can choose from thousands of titles, but a standout series can be the reason someone joins the service or continues paying for it. According to Cahall, such hits are a condition for the stock to return to gains, leaving room for recovery if Netflix succeeds in renewing audience interest. The Wells Fargo view differs from the prevailing direction on Wall Street, where 38 of 52 analysts covering Netflix rate it Buy or Strong Buy and the rest recommend Hold, while the average target shown by LSEG stands at about $95.6, roughly 32% above $72.15 versus Wells Fargos $57 target, leaving a wide gap between forecasts and making the conversion of content investment into stronger viewing and service demand the central issue.

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