No doubt about it, 2017 has been a stellar year for Netflix Inc. (NFLX) - Get Report shareholders. Since the calendar flipped to January, shares of the streaming video service have rallied more than 57%, besting the rest of the broad market by a factor of four.

And that positive price momentum isn't showing any signs of slowing down as investors barrel toward the end of the calendar year.

Netflix caught substantial attention last week when it announced it is raising prices from $9.99 a month to $10.99 a month for its standard service, and from $11.99 to $13.99 a month for its premium service. Wall Street liked the update -- NFLX ended the week hovering just below all-time highs.

That price hike boils down to one fact that Wall Street seems to get: Netflix's value-add for consumers far exceeds the current monthly price of the subscription. And that fact gives Netflix meaningful pricing power right now.

The proof is in the price action.

It doesn't take an expert trader to figure out Netflix's price action right now -- shares have been bounding their way up and to the right, stretching all the way back to last fall. And, with the exception of a very temporary bear trap in late June and early July of this year, that uptrending channel has been inviolate for the entire stretch.

Put simply, the uptrending channel in Netflix gives us a confidence band that the price action is likely to stay within until the trend eventually changes. So far, every test of trendline support on the way up has provided Netflix bulls with a low-risk, high-reward buying opportunity for shares. In other words, it's a "buy the dips stock."

Shares' latest dip at the start of October serves as confirmation that buyers are still in control of shares at all-time highs.

Meanwhile, relative strength, the side-indicator down at the bottom of the Netflix chart, adds some extra confidence to the upside move in shares. That's because relative strength has been in an uptrend of its own, mirroring the uptrend in the price action. Those higher lows in relative strength signal that Netflix is continuing to outperform the rest of the broad market right now -- statistically speaking, that implies even more outperformance during the final stretch of 2017.

So, if you've missed out on the Netflix upside year to date, it's not too late to pull the trigger on a Netflix buy here. That said, risk management remains crucial -- the 200-day moving average is a logical place for long-term traders to park a protective stop.

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This article is commentary by an independent contributor. At the time of publication, the author held no positions in the stocks mentioned.