My 2017 Predictions — Amazon Will Buy Twitter, Netflix Grows Alone, and OMG the IPO’s and Deals….

I am soooo Netflix and Chilled out as 2017 begins.

I was left alone over the holidays and I fell into a content sucking coma of Netflix and Amazon.

I am now in the middle of Netflix new series The OA which is interesting. I am deep into season 3 of Downton Abbey with Ellen and have only gotten off the couch to ride or hit the gym the last 7 days.

I have so many content ideas swirling in my head. I am pretty inspired by all that I have been watching and reading.

On to my predictions…

1. Amazon will buy Twitter.

I know Jeff Bezos is cheap but Twitter will not get much cheaper and he already owns the Washington Post. I believe there will be a bidding war. Netflix should reach for Twitter as well. Google and maybe Microsoft will be forced into the bidding, but Amazon should win. If Bezos buys separately with private equity he can just take Twitter private and kick off Donald Trump. I hope he takes the media war up a notch because leaving news to Facebook and Google is a shitshow.

As the ‘good’ content wars escalate between Netflix and Amazon…conversation, discovery and attention will become even more important. They both should lock down this channel by owning Twitter.

Even at $25 billion this is less than 10 percent of Amazon market cap and who better to change the metric story that matters about Twitter than Bezos.

I bought the kids some Twitter stock last week and we own Amazon as always.

2. Netflix will continue to go it alone and keep winning. All the smart people say Netflix has no pricing power. I say bull@#*t. I pay $200 plus a month to go to awful movies. There will always be tens of millions of Americans that will pay a lot more than $9/month for entertainment and great original content the way Netflix has proven to be able to do. Netflix will be a volatile stock but will always have a massive multiple because of the recurring revenue and acquisition premium. The big dips will always get bought. They just will not sell!

I own Netflix

3. The IPO market is primed. Don’t take my word for it — Take Fred Wilson’s on it:

The IPO market, led by Snapchat, will be white hot. Look for entrepreneurs and the VCs that back them to have IPO fever in 2017. I expect we will see more tech IPOs in 2017 than we have since 2000.

Generally the stock market peaks when IPO’s get frothy and low as markets bottom, but this chart has shown a big divergence lately:

There are many reasons for the lack of IPO’s and this post is FANTASTIC by Morgan Housel, but the fear and greed stars are very aligned as we start 2017.

The IPO market will get their ‘birther movement’ this year.

4. Acquisition numbers will be bananas!

The financial stocks are leading the stock market and they will not risk their future on leverage this time around (at least not in 2017). They will bank deals and do their own acquisitions. Their rising stocks combined with lousy multiples for fintech startups over the years make it a perfect storm for the big banks to make their moves before China tech leaders and our big tech leaders make their move into the space.

Fred Wilson also talks about the acquisitions continuing in the enterprise space which I will not bet against. Here is Fred’s full post of 2017 predictions.

I feel well positioned if any of these predictions come true.

Most importantly to my portfolio and maybe America is what Brad Feld predicts in ‘Startups Everywhere’.

I am thrilled to participate in all these opportunities and trends as 2017 begins.

Originally published at Howard Lindzon.