Pivotal Research Group became on Thursday the second Wall Street research firm to slap a $500 price target on Netflix this week as analysts' love of the stock hits a fever pitch.
Analyst Jeffrey Wlodarczak raised his 12-month price target on the video-streaming giant to $500 from $420 per share. Wlodarczak's new price target implies a 20 percent upside from Netflix's close on Wednesday.
"We expect yet another solid result (and 3Q guidance) in the seasonally weaker 2Q driven by content launches, aggressive increases in marketing spend and the natural momentum of the business," Wlodarczak said in a note to clients.
He also said the recently approved AT&T-Time Warner acquisition could boost Netflix shares moving forward. "We view the close of the AT&T/TWX deal as a potential nice positive for NFLX in regards to picking up TWX talent and likely weakening a global competitor (HBO) as AT&T is likely to find it very difficult to mash together two extremely disparate operating cultures."
Netflix shares rose to an all-time intraday high before closing 0.3 percent lower.
On Tuesday, GBH Insights raised its price target to $500 from $400, citing higher levels of engagement versus its competitors Amazon and Hulu. The two are the highest price forecasts on Wall Street.
Netflix shares have been on fire lately, notching a record high on Wednesday and skyrocketing 120 percent over the past six months. Other so-called FANG stocks like Facebook, Amazon and Alphabet also hit all-time highs in the previous session.
"NFLX offers consumers an increasingly compelling unique entertainment experience on virtually any device, w/o commercials at a relatively low cost," Wlodarczak said. "The company appears to operate in a virtuous cycle, as the larger their subscriber base grows (and their ARPU increases) the more they can spend on original content, which increases the potential target market for their service … and dramatically increases barriers to entry, boosted by continued material increases in broadband availability/speeds globally."
Disclosure: Comcast, which owns CNBC parent NBCUniversal, is a co-owner of Hulu.