Benzinga | Dec 29, 2021 07:29AM EST

Baird Picks Amazon, Meta, Zynga As Top Internet Picks For 2022

* Internet investors remain primarily focused on shorter-term trends, near-term growth comps, and macro influences, rather than secular growth drivers, heading into 2022, Baird analyst Colin Sebastian tells.

* Sebastian assumes that forward-year growth comps and margin trends will mainly drive near-term sentiment and less by the size of total addressable markets or secular growth themes.

* With this in mind, Sebastian transitioned his large-cap pick from Alphabet Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG) (NASDAQ:GOOGL) to Amazon.com Inc (NASDAQ:AMZN) and Meta Platforms Inc (NASDAQ:FB).

* Sebastian also changed his top small/mid-cap picks from ChannelAdvisor Corp (NYSE:ECOM), Carvana Co (NYSE:CVNA), and Take-Two Interactive Software Inc (NASDAQ:TTWO) to Zynga Inc (NASDAQ:ZNGA).

* Additionally, Sebastian warmed to a few others, including Twitter Inc (NYSE:TWTR) and Vroom Inc (NASDAQ:VRM).

* For Meta, Sebastian expects more positive commentary on core advertising trends in 2022.

* On Amazon, he says the company is a crucial beneficiary of digital transformation and a mix shift towards recurring revenues.

* For Zynga, Sebastian sees potential positive catalysts from easing Identifier for Advertisers headwinds and ramping monetization of new titles.

* Price Action: AMZN shares traded higher by 0.20% at $3,420 in the premarket session on the last check Wednesday.