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Netflix stock drops after billionaire Carl Icahn cashes out stake

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Netflix Inc.’s stock continued to fall in early trading Thursday after billionaire investor Carl Icahn revealed he sold the last of his shares in the video-streaming company.

The stock was down $17.94, or 2.6%, at $660.67 a share.

Icahn, the 79-year-old activist investor, said Wednesday on Twitter that he had sold the last of his Netflix stock, an investment that earned him a profit of more than $2 billion in three years.

His tweet came as Los Gatos-based Netflix was trading near a high of $706 a share Wednesday, so the stock has now lost about 6% since he made the disclosure.

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Icahn later told CNBC that his action partly reflected his concern that the stock market overall is “overheated,” but that “Netflix is still a great company.”

He also said Netflix was not the bargain it was when Icahn began investing in the company at $58 a share in 2012.

Netflix on Tuesday also announced a seven-for-one stock split, and the stock is scheduled to begin trading on a post-split basis July 15.

Icahn said he hopes his investment in Apple Inc., worth nearly $7 billion, pays off as well as Netflix. “I think Apple is where Netflix was a couple of years ago,” he said.

Twitter: @PeltzLATimes

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