Ben Carlson
Director of institutional asset management at Ritholtz Wealth Management who writes about investing, markets and risk on the A Wealth of Common Sense blog.
“Streaming is one of the greatest inventions of all time. And the company that won, their stock stinks.”
Animal Spirits Podcast · October 2026
Context
Michael Batnick had just pointed out that Netflix stock is down over five years while the Nasdaq 100 nearly doubled, despite rising operating income and two deep crashes along the way. Carlson sums up the paradox of winning a market and losing investors.
Transcript
Right.
…a 75% crash, recovered, and then a 50% crash. This is one of the worst stocks over the last five years. And it won. Again, caveats aside, but like it is just such a hyper ruthless capitalistic society that we live in. That's great for investors in the aggregate, right? It's great for the market.
Streaming is one of the greatest inventions of all time. And the company that won, their stock stinks.
Yes. So it's a lot of, on the one hand, a lot of great stuff. On the other hand, a lot of stuff that drives people nuts. So do
you think, like, what
if people are taking advantage of the rewards that they're being offered? So
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