Trade Desk (TTD)

Communication Services · $7.3B market cap · SEC CIK 0001671933

Next reports on Feb 23, 2027, after the close, with analysts expecting $0.29 in earnings per share.

52-week range $11.62 to $46.00. 66% below its 52-week high and 33% above its low.

The case for TTD

• Cheap for its growth: 17.8× earnings, where 17% a year of growth would justify about 34×.
• Generated $796M of free cash flow in FY2025, 27% of revenue.
• Free cash flow of 11.0% of its market value a year: a lot of cash for the price.
• Revenue growing 11.6% year over year.
• Has compounded revenue at 28.2% a year over five years.
• Return on equity of 16%.

The case against

• Down 65.3% over the past year.
• Growth is slowing: revenue up 11.6% this year against 28.2% a year over five.
• Near the bottom of its 52-week range, 66% below the high. Falling prices usually have a reason; find it first.

What the score is made of

Each factor is half a curve over reported figures and half a rank among the other Communication Services companies (momentum is judged against fixed thresholds only), and the five are blended by weight. The score is where that blend places it in the S&P 500. It describes the last filing and the current price. It is not a forecast.

• Each factor except momentum is half fixed thresholds, half rank among the 19 Communication Services companies.

The financials

The financials, five years deep

Pulled from Trade Desk's XBRL filings on SEC EDGAR. Italic rows are worked out from the others.

What Trade Desk says it does

Overview We are a global leader in advertising technology. We empower ad buyers to create, manage and optimize digital advertising campaigns across ad formats, channels and devices. Our platform’s depth, artificial intelligence (“AI”) capabilities and rich ecosystem of inventory, publisher and data partner integrations enable superior reach and decisioning for clients. In addition to the primary capabilities provided by our self-service platform, our enterprise application programming interfaces (“APIs”) equip our clients with the ability to customize and expand platform functionality. Our clients are advertising agencies, advertisers and other service providers for agencies or advertisers, with whom we enter into ongoing master services agreements (“MSAs”). We generate revenue by charging our clients a platform fee generally based on a percentage of our clients’ total platform spend and from providing value-added services and data to…

Risk factors TTD lists in its 10-K

• If we fail to maintain and grow our client base and spend through our platform and related offerings, our revenue and business may be negatively impacted
• The loss of advertising agencies, advertisers or holding companies as clients could significantly harm our business, financial condition and results of operations
• If our access to quality advertising inventory is diminished or fails to expand, our revenue could decline and our growth could be impeded
• The market in which we participate is intensely competitive, and we may not be able to compete successfully with our current or future competitors
• If we fail to innovate or make the right investment decisions in our platform and related offerings, we may fail to attract and retain advertisers and advertising agencies and our revenue and results of operations may decline
• Note 13—Commitments and Contingencies—Litigation
• We may experience fluctuations in our results of operations, which could make our future results of operations difficult to predict or cause our results of operations to fall below analysts’ and investors’ expectations
• Our future success depends on the continuing efforts of our key employees, including Jeff T. Green, and our ability to attract, hire, retain and motivate highly skilled employees in the future
• Operational performance and internal control issues may adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations and subject us to liability
• Evolving industry standards regarding impression counts and related disputes and customer collections could impact our business and reputation
• Advertising technology industry self-regulation may lead to investigation by government or self-regulatory bodies, government or private litigation, and operational costs or harm to reputation or brand
• Seasonal fluctuations in advertising activity could have a negative impact on our revenue, cash flow and results of operations
• If we fail to offer sufficient client training and support, our business and reputation would suffer
• Failure to manage our growth effectively could cause our business to suffer and have an adverse effect on our financial condition and results of operations
• If we do not effectively grow and train our sales and client service teams, we may be unable to add new clients or increase sales to our existing clients and our business will be adversely affected
• As our costs increase, we may not be able to generate sufficient revenue to sustain profitability
• Disruptions to service from our third-party data center hosting facilities and cloud computing and hosting providers could impair the delivery of our services and harm our business
• We face potential liability and harm to our business based on the human factor of inputting information into our platform
• We have entered into, and may in the future enter into, credit facilities which may contain operating and financial covenants that restrict our business and financing activities
• Our corporate culture has contributed to our success, and if we are unable to maintain it as we grow, our business, financial condition and results of operations could be harmed
• Our proprietary rights may be difficult to enforce, which could enable others to copy or use aspects of our technology without compensating us, thereby eroding our competitive advantages and harming our business
• We may be sued by third parties for alleged infringement of their proprietary rights, which would result in additional expense and potential damages
• We are subject to anti-bribery, anti-corruption and similar laws and non-compliance with such laws can subject us to criminal penalties or significant fines and harm our business and reputation
• The market price of our Class A common stock may be volatile or may decline regardless of our operating performance, and you may not be able to resell your shares at or above your purchase price
• Substantial future sales of shares of our common stock could cause the market price of our Class A common stock to decline
• Insiders have substantial control over our company, including as a result of the dual class structure of our common stock, which could limit your ability to influence the outcome of key decisions, including a change of control
• Note 13—Commitments and Contingencies—Litigation
• Our governing documents and Nevada law could discourage takeover attempts and other corporate governance changes
• The requirements of being a public company may strain our resources, divert our management’s attention and affect our ability to attract and retain qualified board members
• Future acquisitions, strategic investments or alliances could disrupt our business and harm our business, financial condition and results of operations
• We may not be able to secure additional financing on favorable terms, or at all, to meet our future capital needs, which may in turn impair our growth
• Our tax liabilities may be greater than anticipated

Filings

Other Communication Services companies