Raphael Stevens

From increasing profit margins and $280 billion in expected revenue by 2030 to 1 million robotaxis, a look at the most significant figures from General Motors’ investor day.

GM Chair and CEO Mary Barra addresses investors Oct. 6, 2021 at the GM Tech Center in Warren, Michigan.
Photo by Steve Fecht for General Motors

DETROIT — General Motors gave investors a detailed look at its financial operations Wednesday, outlining how the automaker plans to grow profit margins and double its revenue to about $280 billion by the end of this decade.
To accomplish such lofty goals, GM CEO Mary Barra and her executive team plan to transition the traditional automaker to what they’re calling a “platform company,” leveraging its core businesses of building and selling cars to expand and grow “beyond the vehicle.”

“General Motors is delivering the technologies that redefine how people and goods are moved,” Barra said Wednesday at GM’s tech campus in suburban Detroit during the first day of a two-day investor event. “Our commitment to a vision of a world with zero crashes, zero emissions and zero congestion has placed us ahead of much of the competition.”

Investors weren’t immediately impressed with GM’s announcements during the more than five-hour event. The automaker’s stock closed Wednesday down by less than 1% to $53.93 a share. Shares closed Thursday up by 4.7% to $56.44 a share, helped by a broader market rally.
GM CFO Paul Jacobson said he wasn’t worried about the lack of movement in the stock price. He said the company wanted to clearly lay out its plans, some of which may have been lost by investors with the coronavirus pandemic and global semiconductor chip shortage.
“We obviously put a lot on the market today, and I think they will process it, but we’re very, very confident,” he told reporters during a briefing. “We didn’t come out today to move the stock price today, we came out today to really make sure people understand the mindset of what we have here.”
Aside from the revenue growth, here are other numbers investors should keep in mind as GM attempts to execute its plans.

Profit margin

GM plans to increase its operational profit margin to between 12% and 14% by 2030. That’s up from 7.9% in 2020.

Brightdrop

Much of the investor day Wednesday was focused on the company expanding its business to generate recurring software- and service-based revenue.
GM is targeting revenue growth of operations such as OnStar as well as new businesses such as its majority-owned self-driving subsidiary Cruise and commercial EV unit BrightDrop from $2 billion to $80 billion by 2030.
Most of that new, incremental revenue is forecast to be during the back half of this decade, GM said.

EVs

GM projects EV revenue to grow from about $10 billion in 2023 to approximately $90 billion annually by 2030 as the company launches new models, including at least 30 new electric vehicles by 2025.

Capital spending

GM’s annual capital spending, including investments in joint ventures to build battery plants, is expected to be around $9 billion to $10 billion in the medium term as the company transitions to a majority EV product portfolio.
GM said it expects to fully fund these investments through internally generated funds.

Speed

As part of GM’s move to achieve greater recurring revenue, the automaker plans to offer remote upgrades for its vehicles.
They are expected to range from hands-free driving technologies to increased performance for things such as a “0-60 acceleration software upgrade,” according to Alan Wexler, GM senior vice president of innovation and growth.

EV chargers

To increase availability of electric vehicle chargers — a major hurdle to EV ownership — GM plans to invest about $750 million in the devices by 2025. That includes home, workplace and public charging throughout the U.S. and Canada, GM said.

Robotaxis

Cruise CEO Dan Ammann said the majority-owned self-driving subsidiary expects to begin charging for robotaxis in self-driving vehicles in San Francisco by 2022, pending state approval.
The company last week was granted the fifth of six permits needed to commercialize a self-driving ride-hailing fleet in the state.

Autonomous driving

Cruise is targeting a fleet of 1 million or more self-driving vehicles by 2030, according to a slide Ammann presented to investors.
“We expect to scale the business rapidly,” Ammann said.
Ammann did not specifically discuss the 2030 target, but a Cruise spokesman confirmed “that’s where the company believes it can be.”

EV/AV spending

For the first time, GM detailed its previously announced plan to spend $35 billion on electric and autonomous vehicles through 2025.
The plan includes $20 billion in capital and engineering related to electric vehicles, $10 billion in battery and motor production and development, including new plants, and $6 billion in Cruise.

Ultra Cruise

GM said that in 2023 it will release a new hands-free system called “Ultra Cruise” that is capable of driving in 95% of scenarios. The system is expected to be far more capable than its current Super Cruise system, which is exclusively available on premapped divided highways.
At launch, GM said, Ultra Cruise will be available on more than 2 million miles of road in the U.S. and Canada. Super Cruise is currently available on more than 200,000 miles of road.

The 2024 GMC Hummer EV SUV and 2022 GMC Hummer EV sport utility truck, or SUT.

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American, Southwest, JetBlue and Alaska Airlines have told staff over the past week that they must be vaccinated against Covid-19 under the Biden administration’s federal contractor rules.
Regional carriers that fly shorter routes for airlines say they are reviewing new rules for federal employees.
United Airlines implemented a vaccine mandate in August and said more than 96% of its employees are immunized.

A United Airlines worker services a United Express Embraer 170 passenger aircraft parked on the tarmac at Albuquerque International Sunport in New Mexico.
Robert Alexander | Getty Images

Major U.S. airlines are increasingly mandating Covid-19 vaccines for employees. Some of the regional carriers that fly under their names have not — at least not yet.
Large airlines like United, American and Delta contract smaller carriers to operate some shorter routes in their networks, tickets for which are sold on the bigger carrier’s website and other platforms as its own. Some of these smaller airlines are wholly owned subsidiaries such as American’s Envoy and Delta’s Endeavor Air while others, like SkyWest and Mesa Air Group, are independent.

Representatives for Mesa, Envoy, SkyWest and United contractor CommutAir said they haven’t issued requirements for employees yet but are evaluating whether federal requirements will compel them to mandate vaccines for staff.
The Biden administration last month said federal contractors must ensure that their staff is vaccinated against Covid by Dec. 8. President Joe Biden also said that companies with more than 100 employees will have to enforce a vaccine mandate for all staff, or regularly test those who aren’t. Regional carriers would at the very least fit into the second category.

“It’s somewhat murky,” Jonathan Ornstein, CEO of Mesa Air Group, which flies for American and United, said of what will be required of regional airlines. The Phoenix-based carrier’s executives are awaiting more clarity on the rules from federal officials, lawyers and airline customers, but the carrier will comply with federal mandates, he said.
Ornstein said he worries about potentially losing workers if the company of more than 3,000 employees mandates staff vaccinations without a federal requirement that would put competitors on a level playing field.
“I’m concerned that if in the hypothetical we were to mandate a vaccination and there were other job opportunities that didn’t mandate vaccines [some employees] would leave,” he said.

American, Alaska, JetBlue and Southwest each told staff over the past week that they must be vaccinated to comply with the federal contractor rules. Previously, those airlines encouraged staff to be vaccinated but didn’t require it. United had implemented its own vaccine mandate in August and has said that more than 96% of its 67,000 U.S. employees are vaccinated after the deadline passed last week. The Chicago-based airline said it encouraged its contractors to mandate vaccines as well.
Those large airlines are federal contractors, providing services like cargo flights or tickets for government employees, among other services. Southwest does not use third-party regional airlines.

Federal contractors

Regional airlines operate some of those flights under the City Pair Program, which sets fares for federal workers to some 12,000 markets. For example, a search for a Delta flight from Lehigh Valley International Airport in Pennsylvania to Detroit showed an option operated by Endeavor Air. A United flight from California Redwood Coast – Humboldt County Airport to Los Angeles showed one operated by SkyWest. The U.S. General Services Administration, which administers the City Pair Program, didn’t respond for a request for comment.
A recent daily schedule showed about 54% of United’s more than 4,000 departures were operated by regionals, 40% of Delta’s roughly 4,100 flights a day were operated by regional carriers that fly for Delta Connection and that they operated 52% of the flights on American’s schedule, though amounts fluctuate. Their share of overall capacity can be lower — just under 15% for United last year — because mainline carriers operate longer flights.
“A critical mass of U.S. airline flights are operated by third parties that have their own standards and own ways to do business including how they approach vaccinations,” said Henry Harteveldt, founder of travel industry consulting firm Atmosphere Research Group.

Mainline versus regional

Atlanta-based Delta doesn’t currently mandate vaccines for its staff of roughly 80,000. It says more than 80% of them are vaccinated. In November, it will start charging unvaccinated employees an extra $200 per month for company health insurance. The surcharge doesn’t apply to Endeavor.
American Airlines late Wednesday told its staff of 100,000 people to upload proof of vaccination by Nov. 24 and that failing to do so would “result in termination from the company.”
That only applies to its mainline airline employees, not its regional carriers. Envoy, one of those carriers, said it is still reviewing the guidelines.
It is not clear how many of the regional airlines’ employees are vaccinated, but Harteveldt said the longer they wait “the more scrambling there has to be” to comply with a mandate.
United laid the groundwork for its vaccine mandate for months before it was announced. It also worked with unions to establish vaccine incentives, ensure they have access to the shots and policies for people who need medical exemptions.
“United worked in a very collaborative way with their unions, but it was a monthslong process,” Harteveldt said. “It wasn’t an hourlong Zoom call.”

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Suzy Welch says the certainty that often defined the C-suite has been supplanted by humility: “Think about how many times a day you say ‘I don’t know’ and how much more accepted it is,” she said during a CNBC Leadership Exchange virtual event on Wednesday.
Greg Becker, CEO of Silicon Valley Bank, said he expects that decisions he makes today will need to be reconsidered in as little as three months.
“It’s seismic change, but we don’t know what the end point is,” said Eric Starkloff, CEO of National Instruments.

Suzy Welch thought she and other leaders were experiencing decision fatigue during the pandemic, but it was something else, something new taking place in the C-suite that she thinks will ultimately benefit leaders.
“It was really learning fatigue, learning new things every day, and there are only so many new things you can process,” the management expert and CNBC Contributor said during a CNBC Leadership Exchange on Wednesday with CEOs across a wide range of industries.

“We will come out of it a lot smarter, but it’s a lot,” Welch said.
Even though many CEOs say business is great and the transformation during the pandemic went better than expected, they still feel as if there is a fog in decision making, especially when it comes to leading employees through a period of upheaval in the way we work.

“The biggest challenge is how fast things are accelerating. … feels like change is happening seven times the pace,” said Greg Becker, CEO of Silicon Valley Bank, of leading an organization today.
Tim Graham | Getty Images News | Getty Images

Even leaders accustomed to a fast pace of innovation say what’s occurring now is unlike anything they’ve experienced in the past. “Things are happening so fast it’s like living in a world of dog years,” said Greg Becker, CEO of Silicon Valley Bank, which handles banking for over 50% of all venture-backed companies. Becker said that for his firm, and among many of its clients, “the biggest challenge is how fast things are accelerating. … feels like change is happening seven times the pace.”
“And seven or even seventy times less visibility at the same time,” Welch interjected. “Put those two things together, and there you are.”
The need to be more flexible than ever with decisions, including with a firm’s return to office strategy, is part of a landscape in which CEOs like Becker expect management choices to be quickly, and rightly, questioned. “Whatever we decide the path forward is, three months after that, we will be changing it again,” he said.

Some CEOs got their start during the early days of the pandemic, a crash course in the unprecedented, including Eric Starkloff, CEO of National Instruments. His first two tasks were setting up a crisis team and shutting down the engineering company’s operations in China. While business has been good since, in other ways he said it doesn’t feel like the situation has gotten much easier since the worst of Covid. “Predicting the future with the seismic shift of change is a fool’s errand,” Starkloff said. “Managing employees through that uncertainty is difficult.” 

Humans and hybrid work

The CEO relationship with employees in a world of increasing remote and hybrid work is a focus, and new pain point, of leaders. “Creating culture on a computer is a new thing for many of us,” Welch said.
There are clear benefits, according to Tom Leighton, CEO of Akamai Technologies, who said “a lot” of his firm’s employees will be working from home “forever.” And he added that “spending time on the treadmill instead of commuting is healthier.”  
Company leaders recently indicated to CNBC that they are “at their wits’ end” in the attempt to bring workers back, and CEOs at the CNBC Leadership Exchange said as voluntary returns have begun for vaccinated workers, the numbers on those returning are low. New work structures are here to stay, but they are concerned about the toll of near two years of work-from-home on individual employees and organizational culture.
Tony Coles, chairman and CEO of Cerevel Therapeutics, a neuroscience firm that went public during the pandemic and has been involved in additional capital raises since, said the blocking and tackling in the life sciences sector has included challenges, from making sure clinical trials get enrolled to FDA conversations keeping on track, but “the harder part,” Coles said, “is the loss of human touch.” While Cerevel’s essential lab workers were back in the office early, office workers are still not back and Coles said “we are bemoaning the loss of human contact … and beginning to see signs of wear, and that concerns me greatly.”
Ralph Izzo, the CEO of utility Public Service Enterprise Group, said his company learned during the pandemic that focus on the employees reporting to work and how to keep them safe can result in not enough focus on the workers at home. “There is tremendous emotional fatigue for employees who stayed home,” he said. “You have to be a good spouse, parent, teacher, and doing all at the same time is impossible. One is hard enough to do well.” 
Dan Amos, who has been CEO of Aflac for 31 years, said he is writing more handwritten notes to employees than he has “ever done in my life.”
“The quarter just ended for sales and I wrote 80 notes, just very short notes … trying to connect with people, to let them know they are important,” Amos said. “And that’s been something I really had to work on.”
“Hybrid is harder than sending everyone out the door to work remotely,” said Tami Erwin, CEO of Verizon Business. “So that’s what we’re really struggling with, how work be what we do, rather than where you go.”
If companies return to a world where half of a meeting’s attendees are in person and half are joining by video, “I guarantee you the half online would feel out of place,” said Jack Remondi, Navient CEO. “And that will be a really significant challenge as we move into this next phase.”
Hybrid work models can be “well-orchestrated,” according to Tiger Tyagarajan, CEO of global consulting firm Genpact, but like many CEOs, he remains concerned about building and maintaining a culture in the new work norm. “A number of our younger workers have said they are missing apprenticeship and the ability to ‘learn from people like you.’ It’s a tough one and I don’t know how to solve it, and I think the world is grappling with it. … There is a danger of losing some things. Some of the things we used to have we need to bring back with all of the things we learned. That’s the tough part of the mixture,” he said.
Genpact has instituted a few simple rules for the new work environment, and as more workers think about coming back to offices, on a hybrid basis. Genpact employees are being told to think about coming to the office as a “team sport.”
“That is more important than individuals coming back,” Tygarajan said. “And don’t come back if it is all Zoom calls.” He added that mode of work is fine, but defeats the purpose of returning to the office.

Labor shortages, supply chain bottlenecks

Amid the broader human dimensions in decision-making and employer-employee relationships, the global economy rattled by labor shortages and supply chain cracks is testing these leaders in specific ways.
While a work world leaning into tech has opened up opportunities to recruit from anywhere, and firms including Cerevel have removed restrictions on C-suite executives needing to relocate to its Boston base, the labor shortage is hitting some organizations hard.
Anita Jenkins, CEO of Howard University Hospital, said staffing is a huge issue for her hospital system. “The pandemic created a market that doesn’t exist like it did. [Nurses] can get twice to three times as much money as they did before, and they are going for money,” she said, even when it means moving long distances. “All of the hospitals and health-care centers are vying for the same people, or less people,” she added.
The reevaluation of life and work caused by the pandemic also is weighing on staffing, Jenkins said, with experienced nurses who had five to seven years of a typical career left now saying, “I’m done. I’m going to spend time with my family, I’m going to be safe. I’m going to get out of that workplace. … We are struggling with staffing and ‘we’ are all over the country,” she said.
The “double-edged sword” of the supply chain is being felt at J.M. Smucker Company, said its CEO Mark Smucker. Business is strong. More people are eating breakfast and lunch at home and drinking more coffee, and adopting more pets, and all of those pandemic life trends have been good for the company’s business units. But “the supply chain has been tough,” Smucker said. While consumers have felt the pain in grocery stores from early in the pandemic through to now, he noted it has been hard on workers, too. “The ongoing time commitment required for the supply chain is tiring for people, and we need to look for ways to give them a break,” he said. 

Line between work and life ‘shattered’

Leaders are prepared to guide organizations from Point A to Point B, but in the current world, they are more willing to accept limitations on their knowledge and the skills that got them to their leadership positions.
“I wonder if there are any know-it-alls left,” Welch said. “It used to be quite endemic in the C-suite, the lack of humility, and you come out of this with the knowledge that tomorrow you can know absolutely nothing.”
“We all came into these chairs as CEOs because we’re really good at getting things done inside organizations, but the past 18 months, in particular, caused us to look outside organizations and to extend our purview,” Cole said. “I’m consoler in chief and listener in chief and Black man in chief. Just had so many different roles in response to the external environment.”
“Whatever line was between work-life and the rest of life was totally shattered,” Starkloff said. That has required leadership to be more authentic and vulnerable and holistic, he said, in leadership approach. “And it’s not going back. It is a permanent change in contact between employer and employee,” he said.
It is an example of the experimentation that will need to continue well past the pandemic nadir. “We are an engineering company and we said early on, we cannot predict this thing, so we will take an engineering approach and experiment like crazy and measure,” Starkloff said.
That experimentation can’t only be about the physical redesign of facilities and conversion of office space to meeting rooms, but the work norms for employees. “Start experimenting,” he said. “Come in two days a week, do a hybrid meeting, see how it works. All of this has been essentially quick and rapid experiments that we can change and grow and learn from, at that pace of ‘dog years’ change,” he said. 

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A major obstacle to the Saudi Public Investment Fund’s buyout of the English team was concern over the Saudi state’s involvement in the team’s affairs.
An earlier buyout deal was ditched in 2020 when the consortium couldn’t prove sufficient separation between themselves and the Saudi state, which is led by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. 

A Premier League match between Wolverhampton Wanderers and Newcastle United at Molineux on October 02, 2021 in Wolverhampton, England.
Naomi Baker | Getty Images

A Saudi consortium led by Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund has successfully purchased England’s Newcastle United soccer team after 18 months of protracted disputes. 
A major final obstacle was overcome Thursday when the Premier League received legally binding assurances from the Saudi kingdom guaranteeing “separation” and that it will not control the 128-year-old soccer club. 

The purchase, for a reported £300 million ($409 million), ends British billionaire businessman Mike Ashley’s 14-year ownership of the team, and will give the Saudi consortium 80% ownership, with a further 10% going to property developers Simon and David Reuben and another 10% to British investor Amanda Staveley’s PCP Capital Partners.
A major obstacle to the Saudi Public Investment Fund’s buyout of the English team was concern over the Saudi state’s involvement in the team’s affairs.
An earlier buyout deal was ditched in 2020 when the consortium couldn’t prove sufficient separation between themselves and the Saudi state, which is led by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. 
Another barrier preventing the Saudi-led group from taking over Newcastle United was also lifted Thursday: A broadcasting complaint from neighboring Qatar’s Middle Eastern Premier League rights holder beIN Sport, demanding Saudi Arabia lift its four-year ban on the sport channel.
The ban, related to the Gulf kingdom’s now-resolved blockade of Qatar, is now lifted, allowing Premier League, UEFA and FIFA matches to air again. Saudi Arabia has also promised to close pirate websites in the kingdom that showed beIN content without the broadcaster’s consent. 

PIF chief Yasir Al-Rumayyan said in a statement after the news was announced: “We are extremely proud to become the new owners of Newcastle United, one of the most famous clubs in English football. We thank the Newcastle fans for their tremendously loyal support over the years and we are excited to work together with them.”

New owners with deep pockets

Ashley’s departure has been long awaited by fans, who believe the retail magnate’s tenure rife with cost-cutting has devastated the team’s performance and reputation. But the Saudi takeover is not without its controversy.
Saudi Arabia is well known for its poor human rights record, and its spearheading of the bombing campaign over Yemen that’s spawned what the United Nations calls one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises. 
Rights organization Amnesty International urged the Premier League on Thursday to prioritize human rights issues and “sportswashing.” 
“Ever since this deal was first talked about we said it represented a clear attempt by the Saudi authorities to sportswash their appalling human rights record with the glamour of top-flight football,” Sacha Deshmukh, Amnesty International’s U.K. chief executive, said in a statement. 
It’s not clear whether Newcastle’s fans at St. James Park take particular issue with the Saudis’ rights record. But reports so far suggest they are looking forward to having new investors with deep pockets to rehabilitate a team that was relegated twice under Ashley’s leadership. 
Alan Shearer, one of the team’s most beloved former players, tweeted on hearing the news: “Yesssssssss. We can dare to hope again.”
Newcastle’s official Twitter account posted a tweet that simply read, “Newcastle UNITED” with two heart emojis in the team’s colors.
The Saudi PIF, which sits on $430 billion in assets, has been on a mission to diversify its holdings as part of the kingdom’s Vision 2030 initiative. Some of its significant investments in the last two years include large stakes in Carnival Cruises, Bank of America, Walt Disney, Marriott International and Facebook.
A statement from the Saudi-led consortium Thursday described the “Investment Group” as “comprised of long-term, patient investors who have every confidence in the future success of the Club.””Today’s announcement is the conclusion of a thorough and detailed process that has allowed the Investment Group to arrive at a deal that benefits all stakeholders and will leave Newcastle United well-placed to pursue a clear, long-term strategy,” the statement added.
The PIF’s Al-Rumayyan will serve as nonexecutive chairman of Newcastle United. Staveley, who heads PCP Capital Partners, will have one seat on the board while Jamie Reuben will also be a director of the club, representing RB Sports & Media.

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A popular retirement savings tactic is on the chopping block in Congress, and investors are eyeing the strategy before it disappears.
Those considering a backdoor Roth individual retirement account need to weigh several factors — upfront bills, future tax brackets, the waiting period and the consequences of boosting income.

Ariel Skelley

A popular retirement savings tactic is on the chopping block in Congress, and investors are eyeing the strategy before it disappears. But there are other things to consider before making changes, financial experts say.  
Currently, investors can skirt the income limits for a Roth individual retirement account by using a so-called backdoor maneuver. 

Investors can make what’s known as nondeductible contributions to their traditional IRA before converting the funds to their Roth IRA. The future tax-free growth may be appealing if they expect a higher bracket in retirement.
More from Personal Finance:What to do if Democrats ax the backdoor Roth IRA strategyHow to avoid individual retirement account deduction mistakesThese year-end tax moves may help you save, regardless of Congress’ moves
House Democrats want to crack down on the after-tax backdoor strategy, regardless of income level, after Dec. 31, according to a House Ways and Means Committee summary. 
While some investors are eager to complete the move before year-end, advisors urge caution, particularly with legislation in flux.
“It’s one of those things that you can’t look at in a vacuum,” said Marianela Collado, a certified financial planner and CPA at Tobias Financial Advisors in Plantation, Florida, explaining investors need to take a holistic approach.

Cover the tax bill

Roth conversions may trigger levies on pre-tax contributions or earnings, so investors will need a plan for covering the bill.
“You need to be mindful of whatever taxes you’re going to incur, based on the conversion,” said Ashton Lawrence, a CFP with Goldfinch Wealth Management in Greenville, South Carolina.

Moreover, someone willing to pay upfront taxes on a Roth conversion may need to project how many years it will take until they break even, Collado said.  
However, some investors opt for taxable Roth conversions in years with lower income or other deductions to offset the levies.

Five-year rule

While Roth IRAs typically offer tax and penalty-free withdrawals anytime for contributions, there is an exception for conversions, known as the “five-year rule.”
Investors must wait five years before they can withdraw converted balances, regardless of their age, or they will incur a 10% penalty. The timeline begins on Jan. 1 on the year of the conversion.

Increased income

Another possible downside of a Roth conversion is the potential to increase that year’s adjusted gross income, which may cause other issues, Lawrence said.  
“It’s like a balloon,” he explained. “If you squeeze it at one end, you’re going to inflate it somewhere else.”
For example, Medicare Part B and Part D base monthly premiums on modified adjusted gross income from two years prior, meaning 2021 income may trigger higher costs in 2023. 
Someone with a modified adjusted gross income above $88,000 ($176,000 for joint filers) will have an added surcharge every month, known as the Income Related Monthly Adjustment Amount or IRMAA.
In 2021, the extra charges for Medicare Part B and Part D may be as much as $504.90 and $77.10, respectively.  

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There may soon be another chance to buy the only FAANG stock hitting new highs this month.
Netflix shares have bucked the sell-off in fellow FAANG names — Facebook, Amazon, Apple and Google parent Alphabet — and the broader technology sector in the past month, climbing to fresh all-time highs.

The rise comes as the streaming giant’s “Squid Game” series explodes in popularity, the most watched in at least 90 countries and a key catalyst for the recent uptick in Netflix app downloads.
Netflix’s upcoming earnings report, scheduled for Oct. 19, could create an entry point in its stock, New Street Advisors Group founder and CEO Delano Saporu told CNBC’s “Trading Nation” on Wednesday.
“There’s still more room to run,” Saporu said. “I was looking at that 610 mark, which is about the most recent high. We’ve obviously broken through that and I think there will be more room to run up until earnings.”
With the stock trading around $637 a share on Thursday, Saporu said too high expectations could create some downward pressure heading into the report.
“That could bring a pullback where investors could look for an opportunity to buy in at that time,” he said. “If you’re an investor right now, we’re running into uncharted territory as far as the stock so you may wait and look what happens at earnings and see if there’s an opportunity there. But I definitely still like and am bullish on Netflix.”

Netflix has also broken above key resistance, meaning there could be more upside, Blue Line Capital founder and President Bill Baruch said in the same interview.
“If you’re a momentum trader, you’ve got your risk management just right here in place,” Baruch said. “You get long and you put a stop somewhere around 620 or so and keep it really tight. If this thing continues to break out and stays out above that trend line, you stay long.”

Arrows pointing outwards

Baruch added that he would prefer to own shares of Netflix and a travel stock such as Expedia over entertainment and theme park play Disney.
“Disney doesn’t really do it for me,” he said. “Unfortunately, I don’t own Netflix and I kind of slept on the pullback, but I would love for an opportunity to see Netflix come back into a buy range. As Delano was saying, wait for earnings, wait for a pullback and I think you could have an opportunity.”
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