Technology

RBC Lists Top 10 Internet Surprises for 2016

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At the end of each year, or in January of the new year, pundits of all shapes, sizes and merit come out with predictions for the new year. The topics range from the top stock picks at a firm to investment themes to watch for. The participants are as notable as the great Byron Wein, who for years has published a list of top 10 surprises, to talking heads like Jim Cramer. The bottom line is all the seasoned investors and strategists speak from experience, and often they get a few right.

A new research report from the Internet analysts at RBC, offers their top 10 Internet surprises. The RBC team in their own words:

Attempt to create a list of what would be the biggest surprises for Internet Investors over the coming year, with a “surprise” being an event that the average Internet investor things is highly improbable, but we believe has a reasonable chance (30%+) of occurring.

While some are far-fetched, they all have a least a glimmer of possibility.

1. The mega-unicorns go public: The analysts point to top private companies that are very high profile that could be ready for an initial public offering in 2016. These companies include such well-known names as: Uber Airbnb, Spotify, Snapchat, Pinterest, Lyft and more.

2. Facebook enters China: This would be a massive surprise, which virtually nobody, including the RBC team, thinks can happen. However, if Facebook Inc. (NASDAQ: FB) would agree to some Chinese stipulations, which needless to say would be stringent, there is a remote possibility.

3. More dividends get paid out in the Internet sector: While only two major companies pay dividends now, RBC sees numerous big players that are solid candidates to pay dividends. They include Priceline Group Inc. (NASDAQ: PCLN), Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOGL), eBay Inc. (NASDAQ: EBAY) and Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ: YHOO).


4. Twitter’s monthly active users begin to decline: While the growth in monthly active users has been tiny over the past year, it seems to be holding its ground. With new leadership as Jack Dorsey returns to Twitter Inc. (NYSE: TWTR), and a Google partnership deal, even the RBC team thinks this is an unlikely event.

5. eBay’s gross merchandise volume begin to decline: This is a distinct possibility as competition from Amazon and others takes a toll. In addition, the current gross merchandise volume rates have underperformed overall e-commerce growth rates. While eBay is pursuing growth initiatives, if they don’t work, there could indeed be a negative surprise.

6. A cloud computing price war breaks out: The analysts note that Amazon.com Inc.’s (NASDAQ: AMZN) price-clearing moves in 2014 pretty much set the table for the industry, and there hasn’t been major price actions over the past 18 months. That is exactly the kind of scenario that sets up a surprise.

7. The winner of the 2016 U.S. presidential elections is determined on the Internet: The conventional wisdom holds that TV advertising is the way to go, and the Internet is not a material advertising venue for political candidates. As we have all seen already, candidates are flooding Facebook with paid messages, and perhaps the social media giant helps to decide the 2016 race.

8. Yahoo’s fundamentals improve and Marissa Mayer remains CEO: This is a real long-shot as the fundamentals at Yahoo are lousy, and so is sentiment toward Mayer. In addition, activist investors have clamored for radical change. However, RBC cites solid brand strength and user loyalty as positives that could help support a turnaround that could keep her in power.

9. Yelp gets acquired: While the recent stock action sure doesn’t give any hints that buyers are lurking, RBC analysts see a large pool of potential acquirers. Yelp Inc. (NYSE: YELP) has almost 2 million claimed local businesses and over 100,000 paying local advertisers. Toss in 100 million unique global visitors replicated over time, and it could be a good bolt-on for a major company looking to quickly acquire a foundation versus building it.

10. Small cap Internet stocks outperform large caps: This is really a far-fetched swing, as the valuations between the two continue to move wider. However some of the top smaller and mid-cap names could outperform if overall fundamentals remain positive. The analysts say that this could lead to a subsector mean reversion. They also cite the possibility of strong mergers and acquisitions activity, which could draw money toward the top smaller players in the industry. Lastly, they cite continued dollar strength, which would in theory hurt large caps more than the smaller cap companies. Still, quite a stretch, but again, that’s what makes a surprise.


So there you have it, some bold predictions from the outstanding team at RBC. While some may shake their heads at these, the bottom line is they have the savvy to at least take a shot, something most firms shy away from. And as a postscript, in the research note RBC posted the results from its 2015’s Internet surprises list. The firm got two of their surprises dead on and can be credited with perhaps a half-correct guess on two more, which totals about three out of 10. A pretty solid record.

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