Netflix investors cheer decision to drop Warner Bros. fight

By Christopher Palmeri, Bloomberg

Netflix Inc. just won by losing.

Shares of the streaming industry leader rose as much as 12% in New York Friday after the company announced it was dropping out of the fight to buy Warner Bros. Discovery Inc.

The decision prompted a sigh of relief from investors who worried that Netflix, a company that rewrote the rules of movies and TV, would end up overpaying billions of dollars to become another me-too Hollywood studio — even if that studio...