What Happened?
Shares of advertising software maker The Trade Desk (NASDAQ: TTD) jumped 5.1% in the morning session after the stock continued its positive momentum following an upgrade from Evercore.
The firm boosted its rating on the ad-tech company to "outperform" from "in-line," citing an attractive valuation and an improved risk-to-reward profile for the stock. While Evercore maintained its price target of $90, the upgrade signaled renewed confidence from Wall Street in the company's growth potential.
The Trade Desk has been a subject of keen interest for investors, especially after it reported strong first-quarter results in May 2025 that significantly beat revenue and earnings estimates. The company's revenue grew 25% year-over-year to $616 million, driven by the accelerated adoption of its Kokai digital advertising platform. This positive sentiment from Evercore adds to an already largely bullish consensus, with the majority of analysts rating the stock as a "buy" or "moderate buy".
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What The Market Is Telling Us
The Trade Desk’s shares are very volatile and have had 25 moves greater than 5% over the last year. In that context, today’s move indicates the market considers this news meaningful but not something that would fundamentally change its perception of the business.
The biggest move we wrote about over the last year was 5 months ago when the stock dropped 33.7% on the news that the company reported disappointing fourth quarter 2024 financial results. TTD had been public for 33 quarters, and this was the first quarterly earnings where the company missed on both the revenue and EBITDA lines. Adding to the disappointment is guidance for Q1 2025, which also came in below Wall Street's estimates for revenue and EBITDA. Management stated that the weak quarter was not due to the macro, market conditions, or competition. Instead, management cited some large internal reorganizations to the sales and engineering teams that led to mis-execution during the quarter. Given the premium valuation and history of beating estimates, shares reacted strongly to the miss.
The Trade Desk is down 38.1% since the beginning of the year, and at $72.83 per share, it is trading 47.8% below its 52-week high of $139.51 from December 2024. Investors who bought $1,000 worth of The Trade Desk’s shares 5 years ago would now be looking at an investment worth $1,792.
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