| Account | Shares | Price | Value | % of acct | Cost/sh | Gain $ | Gain % | Target |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| RLT | 18 | $15.11 | $272 | 0.02% | $53.72 | $-695 | -71.9% | — |
In short: Guest: a newer competitor offering solutions "leaps and bounds better" than the legacy players, but, like Salesforce/Adobe, reliant on third-party data signals rather than a proprietary graph.
In short: Growth stalls. Q2 revenue grew just 3% Y/Y to $715M (a $36M miss), "its slowest growth since 2020," with adjusted EPS $0.34 ($0.06 miss) and adjusted EBITDA −11% to $241M, margin compressing to 34% from 39%; shares plunged more than 20%. Management blamed macro and execution: CPG and auto advertisers — roughly a quarter of the business — remain pressured by tariffs and weaker consumers, while "some brands are shifting budgets toward cheaper fixed-price advertising rather than TTD's targeting," and CEO Jeff Green admitted the company "underperformed our own expectations." Underneath there is traction: 217 Joint Business Plans with large advertisers (+38% Y/Y) whose revenue grows roughly 6x faster than the company overall, EMEA and APAC up nearly 30% YTD, and the Publicis dispute resolved. But the guide is the problem: Q3 revenue of at least $650M against ~$805M consensus — at the floor, revenue would decline about 12% Y/Y — with adjusted EBITDA around $160M. TTD is also rebuilding its senior team (new CFO, CMO and Chief Commercial Officer after a string of departures) and simplifying Kokai into Zuma. "The company now has a lot to prove, with few near-term datapoints for investors to lean on." A disclosed author holding.
The Trade Desk is the system advertisers use to buy targeted digital ads across the open internet. Revenue grew just 3%, the slowest since 2020, and missed. Profit fell 11%. The shares dropped more than 20%.
Two things went wrong at once. Consumer-goods and car advertisers — about a quarter of the business — are cutting back under tariffs and weaker consumer demand. More worryingly, some brands are moving money to cheaper fixed-price advertising instead of paying for precise targeting. That is a challenge to the product's core value proposition, not just a soft quarter. The CEO said plainly that the company "underperformed our own expectations."
There are real bright spots: 217 direct agreements with large advertisers, up 38%, and revenue from those relationships growing about six times faster than the company overall; Europe and Asia up nearly 30% this year.
But the forecast is the problem. The Trade Desk guided next quarter to at least $650 million when analysts expected roughly $805 million — and at that floor, revenue would actually shrink about 12% from a year earlier. Meanwhile it is replacing its CFO, marketing chief and commercial chief after a string of departures, and simplifying its main product into a new version called Zuma. As the article puts it, the company now has a lot to prove with very little to point at in the meantime. The author owns it; analysis, not a recommendation.
In short: "Getting quite cheap on the algorithmic advertising side" ahead of Thursday's after-hours print.
Full passage: premium transcript (PDF).
In short: A missed-deal war story: "Trade Desk could have invested over $50 million" in the CoreWeave round at $1.1B — he was conflicted out and still gets "a little sad" about it. No stance on the stock.
19:10So first of all, thank you for that. Fast forward to today. CoreWeave, Crusoe, Nebius, Lambda, etc. Is the category durable today? Is it a transitional arbitrage on hyperscaler CapEx and token friction? I absolutely think it's durable. And so, first of all, CoreWeave is a little bit of a sad subject for me. I could have, Trade Desk could have invested over $50 million in the round at $1.1 billion.
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