Standard & Poor's
The Australian judiciary delivered a crushing defeat to credit-rating agency Standard & Poor's this week that is seen as having wide-ranging global repercussions REUTERS

After shares of Netflix rose nearly 10 percent on Monday, Standard & Poor's announced after hours that it was cutting its credit rating.

Our expectation is that escalating content commitments will lower profitability over the intermediate term, international expansion will have a greater impact on overall profitability, and a return of domestic subscriber growth could occur slightly later than we initially expected, S&P credit analyst Andy Liu said in a statement.

S&P cut the credit rating of the Los Gatos, Calif.-based company to BB- from BB. Its outlook remains stable.

We are still concerned with the company's escalating content costs and aggressive international expansion plans, the statement continued.

Shares of Netflix rose 9.54 percent to $69.95 on Monday after analysts at Susquehanna bank raised its Netflix rating to neutral from negative.

Netflix angered customers earlier this year with a decision to split its DVD-by-mail and Internet streaming service into two separate websites and to hike subscription prices by as much as 60 percent. The company ultimately backtracked on its decision to split the services, but the price hike wasn't reversed.