SHARES OF NETFLIX PLUNGE

Shares of Netflix fell nearly 20 percent to $361.70 on the Nasdaq Thursday after falling earlier in the day to $331. The DVD-by-mail and streaming company reported a disappointing number of new subscribers in its third quarter, saying that it added 980,000 in the quarter versus 1.3 million during the same quarter a year ago. It had originally forecast that it would add 1.33 million. Wedbush Securities analyst Michael Pachter, who has long warned that Netflix’s debt cannot be justified by its current growth rate, told the Wall Street Journal, "The Netflix myth is they’re going to get to 120 million subscribers. … [But] if growth is slowing, it looks like it will take them a lot longer to get there." Netflix currently has just over 36 million subscribers in the U.S. The company attributed its slower growth in the quarter to its recent hike in subscription prices by $1.00 per month. Pressure on the stock may also have resulted from an announcement that Time Warner’s HBO will begin offering a competing streaming service starting next year.