Netflix stock drops after billionaire Carl Icahn cashes out stake

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.

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