It has been a brutal year for anyone holding onto The Trade Desk. If you’ve looked at your brokerage account lately, you know exactly what I’m talking about. The Trade Desk stock price currently sits around $36.23, a staggering fall from the triple-digit highs we saw not that long ago. In fact, it was the single worst performer in the S&P 500 last year.
That hurts. It hurts even more because the company itself isn’t actually falling apart.
Usually, when a stock drops 68% in a year, you expect to find a company in total disarray—management scandals, plummeting revenue, or a product that nobody wants anymore. But with TTD, the reality is a bit more confusing. Revenue is still growing, though at a slower clip of about 18% year-over-year. They’re still making money. Jeff Green is still at the helm. So, why did the market decide to take this stock behind the woodshed?
The Valuation Trap and the "Amazon Problem"
For years, The Trade Desk was the "Golden Child" of ad-tech. It traded at multiples that made even the wildest SaaS companies look conservative. Investors were paying for perfection. When you trade at 80 or 100 times earnings, you can't just be "good"—you have to be flawless.
In 2025, the flaw appeared. It wasn't a failure of the tech, but a shift in the neighborhood. Amazon decided to get serious about its Demand Side Platform (DSP).
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Amazon's programmatic partnership with Netflix was a bit of a "shot across the bow." Suddenly, the premium streaming inventory that The Trade Desk relied on had a massive, deep-pocketed competitor. This scared the living daylights out of institutional investors. The narrative shifted from "TTD is the king of the open internet" to "Amazon is going to eat their lunch."
But honestly? If you talk to people actually running the ads—the folks over on r/programmatic—they’ll tell you a different story. Amazon’s DSP has been described as a "dumpster fire" in terms of user interface and reporting. It’s great for buying ads on Amazon, but for the complex, nuanced campaigns that TTD excels at? It’s not quite there yet.
Is $36 the Bottom for TTD?
Wall Street seems to think the bleeding might finally be stopping. Just this week, Michael Nathanson over at MoffettNathanson upgraded the stock to Neutral. He’s been a bear for a long time, so for him to stop saying "Sell" is a pretty big deal.
He noted that at 34 times forward earnings, the stock has basically never been cheaper.
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The range of opinions right now is wild. You’ve got some analysts with price targets as low as $34, while others are still banging the drum for $100. It’s a classic tug-of-war between "growth" and "value."
- The Bull Case: Their new AI platform, Kokai, is seeing massive adoption. We’re talking 85% of client spend now flowing through it. It’s making ads more efficient, which is exactly what brands want when budgets are tight.
- The Bear Case: 18% growth is a far cry from the 30% or 40% growth we saw in the "glory days." If the deceleration continues into 2026, even $36 might look expensive to some.
The OpenPath Secret
One thing most casual investors are missing is OpenPath. Basically, it allows The Trade Desk to talk directly to publishers like Disney, Fox, and Condé Nast, skipping the middlemen (the Supply Side Platforms).
This is huge. It now accounts for about 10% of their top line. It makes the whole process cheaper for the advertiser and more profitable for the publisher. It’s a win-win that builds a "moat" around their business that Amazon can’t easily replicate.
What You Should Actually Do
Look, nobody has a crystal ball. But if you're staring at the trade desk stock price wondering if you should cut your losses or double down, here’s the cold, hard truth: the "easy money" phase of TTD is over. You aren't going to see a 50% jump in a week because of a cool press release.
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This is now an execution story.
If you believe that the "Open Internet" will survive and that advertisers want an independent alternative to the Google/Meta/Amazon "walled gardens," then the current price is arguably a bargain. The company has a rock-solid balance sheet and just authorized another $500 million in stock repurchases. They clearly think their own stock is cheap.
Next Steps for Investors:
- Watch the Margins: Keep a close eye on the Q4 earnings report. If they can maintain that 40%+ Adjusted EBITDA margin while facing competition, the "moat" is real.
- Monitor CTV Growth: Connected TV is 50% of their business. If streaming services continue to push ad-supported tiers, TTD wins.
- Size Your Position: This isn't a "bet the farm" stock anymore. It’s a volatile growth play. If you're buying, do it in small chunks (dollar-cost averaging) rather than all at once.
The market is currently pricing TTD as if it’s a dying legacy business. It’s not. But it is a maturing one, and the way you trade it needs to change along with it.