Track market-moving stories before they get noisy

The Trade Desk (TTD - Free Report) has been one of the most searched-for stocks on Zacks.com lately. So, you might want to look at some of the facts that could shape the stock's performance in the near term.

Shares of this digital-advertising platform operator have returned +3.4% over the past month versus the Zacks S&P 500 composite's -0.4% change. The Zacks Internet - Services industry, to which The Trade Desk belongs, has lost 4.7% over this period. Now the key question is: Where could the stock be headed in the near term?

While media releases or rumors about a substantial change in a company's business prospects usually make its stock 'trending' and lead to an immediate price change, there are always some fundamental facts that eventually dominate the buy-and-hold decision-making.

Earnings Estimate RevisionsHere at Zacks, we prioritize appraising the change in the projection of a company's future earnings over anything else. That's because we believe the present value of its future stream of earnings is what determines the fair value for its stock.

We essentially look at how sell-side analysts covering the stock are revising their earnings estimates to reflect the impact of the latest business trends. And if earnings estimates go up for a company, the fair value for its stock goes up. A higher fair value than the current market price drives investors' interest in buying the stock, leading to its price moving higher. This is why empirical research shows a strong correlation between trends in earnings estimate revisions and near-term stock price movements.

For the current quarter, The Trade Desk is expected to post earnings of $0.26 per share, indicating a change of -42.2% from the year-ago quarter. The Zacks Consensus Estimate has changed -31.6% over the last 30 days.

The consensus earnings estimate of $1.22 for the current fiscal year indicates a year-over-year change of -31.1%. This estimate has changed -23.2% over the last 30 days.

For the next fiscal year, the consensus earnings estimate of $1.22 indicates a change of -0.1% from what The Trade Desk is expected to report a year ago. Over the past month, the estimate has changed -15.1%.

Having a strong externally audited track record, our proprietary stock rating tool, the Zacks Rank, offers a more conclusive picture of a stock's price direction in the near term, since it effectively harnesses the power of earnings estimate revisions. Due to the size of the recent change in the consensus estimate, along with three other factors related to earnings estimates, The Trade Desk is rated Zacks Rank #4 (Sell).

The chart below shows the evolution of the company's forward 12-month consensus EPS estimate:

12 Month EPS

Projected Revenue GrowthEven though a company's earnings growth is arguably the best indicator of its financial health, nothing much happens if it cannot raise its revenues. It's almost impossible for a company to grow its earnings without growing its revenue for long periods. Therefore, knowing a company's potential revenue growth is crucial.

For The Trade Desk, the consensus sales estimate for the current quarter of $650.67 million indicates a year-over-year change of -12%. For the current and next fiscal years, $2.86 billion and $2.83 billion estimates indicate -1.4% and -0.9% changes, respectively.

Last Reported Results and Surprise HistoryThe Trade Desk reported revenues of $715.06 million in the last reported quarter, representing a year-over-year change of +3%. EPS of $0.34 for the same period compares with $0.41 a year ago.

Compared to the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $751.58 million, the reported revenues represent a surprise of -4.86%. The EPS surprise was -17.07%.

Over the last four quarters, the company surpassed EPS estimates just once. The company topped consensus revenue estimates three times over this period.

ValuationNo investment decision can be efficient without considering a stock's valuation. Whether a stock's current price rightly reflects the intrinsic value of the underlying business and the company's growth prospects is an essential determinant of its future price performance.

Comparing the current value of a company's valuation multiples, such as its price-to-earnings (P/E), price-to-sales (P/S), and price-to-cash flow (P/CF), to its own historical values helps ascertain whether its stock is fairly valued, overvalued, or undervalued, whereas comparing the company relative to its peers on these parameters gives a good sense of how reasonable its stock price is.

As part of the Zacks Style Scores system, the Zacks Value Style Score (which evaluates both traditional and unconventional valuation metrics) organizes stocks into five groups ranging from A to F (A is better than B; B is better than C; and so on), making it helpful in identifying whether a stock is overvalued, rightly valued, or temporarily undervalued.

The Trade Desk is graded B on this front, indicating that it is trading at a discount to its peers. Click here to see the values of some of the valuation metrics that have driven this grade.

Bottom LineThe facts discussed here and much other information on Zacks.com might help determine whether or not it's worthwhile paying attention to the market buzz about The Trade Desk. However, its Zacks Rank #4 does suggest that it may underperform the broader market in the near term.

Shares of The Trade Desk (TTD -4.37%) took a dive on Friday. The stock dipped as much as 5.7% near noon ET. As of this writing at 3:22 p.m. ET, it had recovered slightly to a 4.7% drop.

The marketing automation expert shook investors with a brief SEC filing, announcing a reorganization with a significant headcount reduction.

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The Trade Desk trims its workforce The Trade Desk will remove approximately 15% of its roughly 3,850 employees from the payroll. The process should be largely completed in the third quarter of 2026, which ends on Sept. 30. The next quarterly report will show restructuring charges between $39 million and $51 million, offset by nearly $5 million in unvested stock-based compensation awards canceled.

According to the filing, The Trade Desk is taking these steps to refocus on high-priority growth opportunities and tighten up its operations.

Image source: The Motley Fool.

What's missing from this filing As a longtime shareholder, I'm not a fan of this restructuring. Let me count the ways:

These announcements typically highlight the expected cost savings. The Trade Desk said nothing about lower expenses, other than the forfeited stock awards. This is a good opportunity to shake up the company's leadership. The Trade Desk has made many missteps at the executive level in recent years; as a direct result, the stock is down 73% over the past 52 weeks. There's nothing about C-suite changes in the SEC filing, and the handful of recent executive changes will stand. Good news gets a proper press release with management comments. This was a bare-bones financial filing, boiled down to the simple facts. The restructuring has all the downsides of a sharp cost-cutting move but none of the upsides -- as far as I can tell, anyway. The company may provide more details over the coming weeks, and November's Q3 earnings call just became a must-see event.

Anders Bylund has positions in The Trade Desk. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends The Trade Desk. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

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Jeff Green's The Trade Desk is laying off 15% of its staff. Greg Doherty/Variety via Getty Images Adtech company The Trade Desk is downsizing.

In a note late Thursday, The Trade Desk CEO Jeff Green informed staff it was laying off 15% of its head count.

In the announcement, which was also published on The Trade Desk's news site, The Current, Green said the aim was to restructure the company into "smaller pods and smaller scrums, but with greater focus."

The company said in a February financial filing that it had 3,843 full-time employees as of December 31, 2025, meaning the restructure is estimated to affect more than 500 staffers.

The news comes on the heels of the company reporting disappointing quarterly performance last month. Revenue grew by just 3% year-on-year, and it missed Wall Street expectations on earnings. Green said at the time the company "did not meet the standard we set for ourselves" and that it was taking actions to strengthen its execution, upgrade its platform, and sharpen its focus.

The Trade Desk declined to provide further comment on the layoffs.

It's been a rocky period for The Trade Desk. Its shares have dropped by around 70% over the past year, and fallen nearly 90% from its late-2024 peak.

The company has experienced a high rate of executive turnover, including the recent departures of its chief finance officer, chief revenue officer, chief strategy officer, chief marketing officer, and four members of its board. It has hired replacements for its CFO and CMO, as well as a chief commercial officer and two new board members.

It also entered a high-profile dispute with one of its large customers, Publicis Groupe. In March, the French advertising group told clients it was no longer recommending The Trade Desk, following an independent audit into its fees. The companies issued a joint statement in June saying they had settled their differences.

"In the context of being one of the worst performing stocks in the S&P 500 for two years running, losing its entire C-level management team, and with expectations of 15% sales declines in 2H26, the head count cuts are no surprise," said Richard Kramer, an analyst at Arete Research.

There had been signs that The Trade Desk could be preparing to cut its ranks. On Thursday, analysts at Evercore ISI published a note recapping the firm's "Rally in the Valley" bus tour. The analysts wrote that The Trade Desk's head of investor relations, Chris Roth, had said the company had "never significantly pared back its cost structure" and that there were likely "significant opportunities to address."

In his statement on Thursday, Green said the company was healthy, adding that it had about $1.5 billion of cash and no debt on its balance sheet.

"Our aim is to position The Trade Desk team to move with greater agility, focus, ownership, and speed," Green said.

The Trade Desk was once one of independent adtech's biggest success stories. The company, which offers a demand-side platform that helps advertisers automate and target their ad buys across websites, apps, and TV, soared in value after its 2016 initial public offering.

In recent years, it has faced some product adoption hiccups and intense competition, particularly from Amazon, which embarked on a yearslong effort to improve its own DSP and take share from The Trade Desk and Google. This year, The Trade Desk, spearheaded by Green, has adopted a combative tone in its communications, targeting the media, Wall Street, and industry players who have questioned its strategy.

Last month, the Securities and Exchange Commission charged the company's former senior director of financial planning and analysis with insider trading, while federal prosecutors separately charged him with securities fraud. They alleged he made more than $338,000 in profits from trading The Trade Desk's stock using material nonpublic information he learned through his employment at the company.

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Lara O'Reilly You're currently following this author! Want to unfollow? Unsubscribe via the link in your email.

Lara O'Reilly is the anchor of the CMO Insider newsletter.She is a chief correspondent who has covered the digital advertising, marketing, and media industries since 2010. Her current beat includes big tech companies like Alphabet and Meta, adtech firms, agencies, publishers, the creator economy, and CMOs.Lara has previously worked as a reporter and executive producer at titles including The Wall Street Journal, Digiday, Yahoo Finance, and Marketing Week. She was previously Business Insider's senior global advertising editor from 2014 to 2017.Lara is a regular guest on TV and radio and has appeared on outlets such as the BBC, NPR, SiriusXM's Wharton Business Daily, and CTV Television Network. She also frequently speaks on stage at major events such as Web Summit, IFA, VivaTech, Advertising Week, and Cannes Lions.To get in touch with Lara O'Reilly, email [email protected] or contact her on Signal at @loreilly.71

Layoffs

Trade Desk Unveils Major Restructuring Summary

The restructuring is expected to cost up to $51 million but could help the company improve cost discipline over time

The Trade Desk ( TTD ) climbed about 3% in early trading Friday after the digital advertising company disclosed plans to eliminate roughly 15% of its workforce as part of a restructuring program.

The job reductions are expected to be largely completed during the third quarter of 2026. Management expects the changes to result in cash expenses of approximately $39 million to $51 million, mainly covering severance and employee benefits.

Some of that amount could be recovered through a $4 million to $5 million reversal in stock-based compensation costs. The company expects to record the restructuring accrual in the third quarter.

The Trade Desk also noted that the final cost could differ from its current estimate. Additional expenses may arise as the workforce plan is carried out.

The initial share-price reaction suggests investors may see the restructuring as a move toward better cost discipline, although the charges will weigh on near-term results.

Disclosures I/we have no positions in any stocks mentioned, and have no plans to buy any new positions in the stocks mentioned within the next 72 hours.

Click for the complete disclosure

LoopMe Brand Lift is now available through a direct API integration with The Trade Desk Measurement Marketplace.

LONDON & NEW YORK & SYDNEY--(BUSINESS WIRE)--LoopMe, the global leader in brand performance, has today announced a new integration with The Trade Desk’s Measurement Marketplace, bringing its patented Brand Lift measurement directly to The Trade Desk customers, giving advertisers a consistent and scalable way to measure brand impact across markets, all within their existing campaign workflow.

Brand lift measurement is often underserved or simply unavailable. Where it does exist, minimum campaign requirements can put it out of reach for smaller campaigns and markets. And for advertisers measuring across multiple regions, working with different vendors and methodologies can make it difficult to build a consistent view of performance. As a result, global brands can measure some of their activity, some of the time, but getting a comparable view of brand impact across markets remains a challenge.

LoopMe Brand Lift within The Trade Desk is designed to remove some of the barriers that have traditionally made global brand measurement difficult to scale:

Measure consistently across markets: Run standardized brand lift measurement across 35+ markets and 17 languages, creating a more comparable view of global campaign performance. Measure more campaigns: Studies can be feasible from just 1 million impressions, compared with provider minimums of 3-4 million impressions in many markets, making smaller campaigns and markets more easily measurable. See results while campaigns are still running: Lift data is updated every 24 hours directly within The Trade Desk’s dashboard, beginning as early as 10 days after launch, with reporting across age, gender, device, creative, ad group and campaign ID. Keep measurement within your existing workflow: Book studies during standard campaign setup in The Trade Desk, with no separate contracting or additional platform required. “In many markets, brand lift measurement is simply not an option for advertisers,” commented Matthew Deets, VP Demand Partnerships at LoopMe. “If it is available, it rarely allows the scope of measurement needed to truly understand results across regions. Our partnership with The Trade Desk helps address these challenges, providing the rigorous standards needed to trust uplift data, while remaining lightweight and scalable enough to be actionable across multiple regions at once. We’re proud to deliver these capabilities in partnership with The Trade Desk team.”

Donny Spano, Director, Data Partnerships at The Trade Desk, added: “We remain committed to advancing the industry by providing advertisers with sophisticated tools and capabilities, particularly within our global infrastructure. We are pleased to extend LoopMe’s international reach and scalability to a broader range of clients and global campaigns.”

LoopMe Brand Lift measures real consumers rather than recruited panels, surveying users within voluntary mobile ad breaks. Control groups are matched using LoopMe’s patented RISA algorithm across 100+ variables, helping advertisers understand the incremental impact of their campaigns with statistically rigorous measurement.

Through the direct API integration, advertisers can set up and launch their study without leaving The Trade Desk. Study parameters are passed directly to LoopMe, where measurement is deployed and results are fed back into The Trade Desk dashboard, eliminating separate logins, accounts and reporting workflows.

About LoopMe

LoopMe is the global leader in brand performance, redefining brand advertising for the digital and app ecosystem. LoopMe was the first to apply AI to brand advertising and its Intelligent Marketplace, finding solutions to industry challenges that haven’t previously been solved. With consumer insights and AI at its core, LoopMe makes brand advertising better, outperforming industry benchmarks for leading global brands. Our vision is to change advertising for the better, by building technology that will redefine brand advertising. LoopMe was founded in 2012 and is headquartered in the UK, with global offices across New York, Boston, Atlanta, Chicago, Detroit, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Toronto, Singapore, Sydney, Melbourne, Dnipro, Krakow, Beijing, Shanghai and Hong Kong. For more information, please visit www.loopme.ai.

Shares of The Trade Desk (TTD +0.44%) were heading lower again last month as the demand-side adtech platform (DSP) again disappointed investors in its second-quarter earnings report.

The company, the leading independent DSP, posted another round of slowing revenue growth and falling profits, as it seems to be losing market share to so-called "walled gardens" like Alphabet, Meta Platforms, and Amazon.

According to data from S&P Global Market Intelligence, The Trade Desk finished the month down 24%. As you can see from the chart below, the stock plunged early in the month after the report came out, and stayed down from there.

TTD data by YCharts

The Trade Desk's struggles continue In less than two years, The Trade Desk has lost roughly 90% of its value, an epic collapse of a company that was once considered a top growth stock.

In the second-quarter report, The Trade Desk reported the slowest revenue growth in its history outside the pandemic, at just 3% to $715.1 million, well below the consensus of $751.6 million.

The adtech firm also came up short on the bottom line, reporting adjusted earnings per share of $0.34, down from $0.41 and below estimates of $0.40. CEO Jeff Green acknowledged that the "quarter did not meet the standard we set for ourselves." He pointed to weak spending in key verticals like consumer packaged goods and automotive, though digital advertising leaders like Alphabet, Meta Platforms, and Amazon all delivered strong revenue growth, showing the digital advertising environment remains healthy.

Image source: Getty Images.

What's next for The Trade Desk The Trade Desk's third-quarter outlook was also disappointing, calling for a sharp sequential decline in revenue to at least $650 million, down 12% from a year ago.

Unsurprisingly, several Wall Street analysts downgraded the stock on the news, noting both macro and internal challenges, and the general sentiment seems to be that any recovery will take time.

Green seems to be trying to persuade investors that an odd combination of industry forces is hurting the company, but that doesn't seem believable. Additionally, The Trade Desk doesn't seem to have any sort of turnaround plan.

If the business is truly on its way to double-digit declines, then it's time for a bigger pivot. As the founder, Green is unlikely to be pushed out, but the company could be on a slow path toward irrelevance without a significant change.

Jeremy Bowman has positions in Amazon, Meta Platforms, and The Trade Desk. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Alphabet, Amazon, Meta Platforms, and The Trade Desk. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

VENTURA, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--The Trade Desk, a leading global advertising technology company, today introduced Kokai Zuma, the new release of its Kokai platform. Introduced in 2023, Kokai is The Trade Desk's platform for planning, buying and measuring advertising across the open internet. The Zuma release makes Kokai easier to navigate, learn and use, bringing together new agentic AI capabilities and a simpler measurement framework. As advertising becomes increasingly fragmented across cha.

Key Takeaways The Trade Desk launched Kokai Zuma with agentic AI, upgraded forecasting and simpler measurement.TTD said Kokai ZUMA enhancements delivered an average 32% improvement in CPA performance in initial resultsTTD expects Q3 revenues of at least $650 million and adjusted EBITDA of about $160 million. The Trade Desk (TTD - Free Report) recently unveiled Kokai Zuma, the latest release of its Kokai platform, as the ad-tech company steps up investments in artificial intelligence (AI), campaign automation and measurement. Kokai platform aids in planning, buying and measuring advertising across the open internet.  

Zuma brings new agentic AI capabilities and a simpler measurement framework to improve navigation on the Kokai platform for buyers and focus more closely on business outcomes. Zuma also builds on the platform’s AI forecasting engine and infrastructure, spanning available inventory prediction, model campaign outcomes, and powering Koa's agentic capabilities in real time.

The Trade Desk said that the latest enhancements to Kokai have generated an average 32% improvement in cost-per-acquisition (“CPA”) performance in initial results. The release also brings Conversion Lift enhancements, improved reporting, a more flexible Report Builder and workflow upgrades such as refreshed page designs, Applied Settings View and bulk editing functionality.

The launch is consistent with priorities outlined during TTD's second-quarter 2026 earnings call. Management identified the Kokai upgrade as an initiative to streamline navigation, workflows, and troubleshooting while enhancing user experience.

While these initiatives provide potential growth catalysts, weaker visibility, macroeconomic pressures and execution issues suggest that TTD's near-term growth trajectory remains challenging. Revenues increased just 3% year over year to $715 million in the second quarter.

The Trade Desk highlighted ongoing pressure in key verticals such as Food & Drink and Home & Garden as consumer-packaged goods (“CPG”) brands face geopolitical tensions, inflation and consumer softness. While automotive is an “area of strength overall”, it is also impacted by tariffs, added management. CPG and autos together account for about 25% of platform spend, increasing exposure to cautious enterprise budgets.

Near-term visibility remains challenging as management's third-quarter guidance assumes no meaningful improvement in the macro backdrop. For the third quarter, management expects revenues of at least $650 million and adjusted EBITDA of approximately $160 million.

Compounding the issues is the intensifying competition in the ad tech space from the likes of walled gardens like Amazon, Alphabet (GOOGL - Free Report) and smaller rivals like Magnite (MGNI - Free Report) .

Mapping the Competitive TerrainAlphabet dominates the digital ad space with its online ad platform. In the second quarter, total advertising revenues increased 14% year over year, with Search and Other revenues rising 17% and YouTube advertising revenues advancing 13%.

GOOGL is stepping up AI integration across the board amid intensifying competition. The launch of AI Overviews and AI Mode is driving growth in overall search queries.  Its AI Max platform has already been adopted by roughly 500,000 advertisers. Management noted that advertisers using AI-powered campaigns such as AI Max or PMax are generating an average 15% more conversions or value on Search at a similar return on ad spend.

Magnite is also expanding its agentic AI capabilities. It recently unveiled Magnite Orchestration and believes the platform can become an infrastructure layer for agentic advertising. Its existing AI suite includes seller agents that create inventory and audience packages and buyer agents that generate custom media plans and activate and discover audience opportunities. Disney Advertising, Publicis Media Exchange, Dentsu and DIRECTV are among the companies working with various components of MGNI’s AI portfolio.

Magnite is entering this transition with strong momentum, with its CTV business continuing to deliver strong performance. Second-quarter 2026 CTV contribution ex-TAC of $97 million was up 36% year over year, now accounting for 51% of total contribution ex-TAC.

TTD Price Performance, Valuation and EstimatesShares of TTD have plunged 29.7% in the past month, while the Zacks Internet – Services industry has inched up 1.6%.

Image Source: Zacks Investment Research

In terms of forward price/earnings, TTD’s shares are trading at 10.98X, lower than the Internet Services industry’s ratio of 20.32X.

Image Source: Zacks Investment Research

The Zacks Consensus Estimate for TTD’s earnings for 2026 has been significantly revised downward over the past 60 days.

Image Source: Zacks Investment Research

TTD currently carries a Zacks Rank #4 (Sell).

You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.

Key Takeaways The Trade Desk is expanding its mid-market strategy as advertisers outside its top 500 grow over 50%.TTD's new measurement framework aims to better show incremental business results across the customer journey.Audience Unlimited and Zuma bring cheaper data access, AI and easier workflows to improve campaign efficiency. The Trade Desk (TTD - Free Report) is expanding beyond its traditional base of large advertisers and agencies to capture a broader pool of midsize businesses and agencies. Per management, advertisers outside its top 500 have grown more than 50% year over year on a year-to-date basis, pointing to momentum among smaller and emerging brands. TTD highlighted three major forces working in its favor as it executes its mid-market strategy while navigating the competitive and macro pressures facing digital advertising.

First, the company is advancing its product roadmap to improve media buying, with a major focus on measurement. Its new measurement framework, currently in alpha, aims to value the full customer journey better rather than relying on last-click or last-view metrics. By giving marketers greater visibility into incremental business results, TTD seeks to make premium open-Internet advertising more measurable and effective.

Second, TTD is ramping up Audience Unlimited, which simplifies how marketers discover and activate third-party data using AI and proprietary data. Its new subscription-based pricing makes data access easier and more cost-effective. As the product moves into Open Beta, early results are encouraging, with a global advertiser cutting both cost per unique household and data CPM by more than 25%, underscoring its potential to improve campaign efficiency.

Lastly, TTD is set to launch Zuma, a major platform upgrade focused on usability. It will streamline navigation, workflows and troubleshooting while leveraging more AI to create a more intuitive user experience. The upgrade reflects TTD’s efforts to respond to client needs and accelerate product innovation. Collectively, these upgrades can make decision-making more measurable and valuable, creating a stronger path to revenue growth.

How Rivals Stack Up Against TTDMagnite (MGNI - Free Report) growth is driven by strong CTV and DV+ demand. Key industry trends include rising programmatic adoption, international expansion and the shift toward CTV, while AI and agentic advertising are emerging as major opportunities. Magnite is developing AI-powered tools and agentic infrastructure to streamline demand-supply orchestration, create customized inventory and audience packages, and eventually support one-to-many RTB auctions. It also sees growing opportunities in live sports, particularly as streaming expands programmatic monetization. Despite some near-term moderation from tough comparisons and macro factors, Magnite expects continued CTV growth and margin expansion, with long-term margins potentially exceeding 40%.

Taboola.com Inc. (TBLA - Free Report) continues to execute despite industry headwinds, including Google policy changes and publisher network cleanup, while raising its full-year ex-TAC growth outlook to 9%. The company is expanding relationships with major publishers like FOX News and winning broader ad-suite opportunities. AI is also becoming a key growth driver, with its Realize+ optimization platform adopted by more than 300 advertisers and new MCP and Claude integrations enabling natural-language campaign management. Taboola also raised its full-year financial outlook and remains focused on disciplined capital allocation, including share repurchases, though persistent FX headwinds could weigh on margins through 2026.

TTD’s Price Performance, Valuation and EstimatesShares of TTD have declined 74.8% in the past year against the Zacks Internet Services industry and S&P 500 composites’ rise of 57.6% and 21.3%, respectively.

Image Source: Zacks Investment Research

From a valuation standpoint, TTD trades at a forward price-to-earnings of 26.29X, higher than the industry’s average of 20.41X.

Image Source: Zacks Investment Research

The Zacks Consensus Estimate for TTD’s earnings has been revised downward over the past 60 days.

Image Source: Zacks Investment Research

TTD currently carries a Zacks Rank #4 (Sell).

 You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.

Jay R. Grant, the Chief Legal Officer of The Trade Desk, Inc. (TTD +0.89%), reported the disposition of 13,355 shares of Class A Common Stock on August 15, 2026, according to a recent SEC Form 4 filing.

Transaction summaryMetricValueShares sold13,355Transaction value~$188,840Post-transaction shares (directly held)334,466Post-transaction value$4.5 millionTransaction value based on SEC Form 4 weighted average sale price ($14.14).

Key questionsWas this a discretionary market sale?
No, the disposition was executed as a non-discretionary withholding of shares to cover tax liabilities arising from the partial vesting of Restricted Stock Awards, a routine feature of institutional equity compensation structures.What remains of the insider's equity position?
Grant maintains direct ownership of ~334,000 shares of Class A Common Stock, representing a 0.0711% stake in the company with a market value of $4.5 million as of the August 17, 2026 market close.What does the vesting schedule indicate about future activity?
The filing discloses that the withheld shares originated from awards granted across four consecutive years (2023–2026), suggesting that similar non-discretionary tax-related dispositions may occur as subsequent tranches of these awards vest.Company OverviewMetricValueShare Price (as of market close 2026-08-17)$13.40Market Capitalization$6.3 billionRevenue (TTM)$3.0 billionNet Income (TTM)$406.9 millionCompany SnapshotThe Trade Desk operates a self-service, cloud-based advertising platform that enables clients to create, manage, and optimize data-driven digital ad campaigns across multiple formats including display, video, audio, native, and social media channels.The company generates revenue primarily through its software-as-a-service platform, which allows advertising buyers to efficiently reach audiences across computers, mobile devices, and connected TVs, supplemented by data services and value-added offerings.The Trade Desk serves advertising buyers and agencies as primary customers, targeting organizations seeking to optimize their digital advertising spend through programmatic, data-driven campaign management across diverse media channels.The Trade Desk is a global technology leader in programmatic advertising with a market cap of $6.3 billion and trailing 12-month revenue of $3 billion, demonstrating significant scale in the digital advertising technology sector. The company's cloud-based platform provides a comprehensive solution for managing complex, multi-channel advertising campaigns, positioning it as a critical infrastructure provider for the digital marketing ecosystem.

With a net profit margin of 13.6% (based on trailing 12-month net income of $406.9 million), The Trade Desk exhibits strong operational efficiency and profitability while maintaining its competitive advantage through continuous platform innovation and expansion across emerging advertising channels.

What this transaction means for investorsChief Legal Officer Jay Grant's Aug. 15 sale of The Trade Desk stock came just days after shares plunged to a 52-week low of $12.83 on Aug. 10. That said, the disposition does not reflect the insider's view on the stock.

It was a non-discretionary transaction executed to satisfy tax obligations resulting from the vesting of equity awards. Grant retained 334,466 directly held shares post-sale, which demonstrates his continued alignment with shareholder interests.

The Trade Desk's stock fell a massive 64% in 2026 through Aug. 19 due to decelerating revenue growth. Through the first six months of 2026, the ad tech giant produced sales of $1.4 billion, representing a 7% year-over-year increase. That's down substantially from the 22% year-over-year growth posted through the same period in 2025.

Even worse, The Trade Desk forecasted third-quarter revenue to reach at least $650 million. That's a drop from the $739 million it achieved in Q3 of 2025 in a sign the company is now struggling to grow.

Robert Izquierdo has positions in The Trade Desk. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends The Trade Desk. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

17.8.2026 22:06

Po rekordech z minulého týdne začíná ten nový v opatrnostním módu. I nadále investoři ostře sledují napjatou situaci na Blízkém Východě, rostoucí ceny ropy a tento týden je to především zápis z červencového zasedání FED. Očekávaný růst sazeb se postupně zaceňuje do cen dluhopisů. Pokračuje výsledková sezóna tento týden zaměřená na maloobchodní giganty.

Index Dow Jones -0,51 % na 53459,78 b.
S&P 500 -0,52 % na 7745,06 b.
Nasdaq Composite -0,32 % na 26644,91 b.

Index S&P 500 -0,52 % na 7745,06 b. Nejsilnější sektory S&P Změna Nejslabší sektory S&P Změna Energie +0,9 % Komunikační služby -1,5 % Informační technologie -0,2 % Nezbytná spotřeba -1,5 % Průmysl -0,2 % Finanční sektor -1 % Nejsilnější akcie S&P Změna Nejslabší akcie S&P Změna Sandisk Corp (SNDK) +8,9 % Carvana (CVNA) -7,3 % Coherent Corp (COHR) +7,8 % Charter Communications (CHTR) -6,6 % Comfort Systems USA (FIX) +6,0 % Constellation Brands (STZ) -6,2 % Teradyne (TER) +5,8 % Align Technology (ALGN) -5,6 % Applied Materials (AMAT) +5,6 % Trade Desk (TTD) -5,2 %
Martin Varecha
Fio banka, a.s.
Prohlášení

In this episode of Motley Fool Hidden Gems Investing, Motley Fool contributors Travis Hoium, Lou Whiteman, and Jon Quast discuss:

The latest jobs report.Recap of the earnings season.The Trade Desk: value or trap?Google's brain drain.Stocks on our radar.To catch full episodes of all The Motley Fool's free podcasts, check out our podcast center. When you're ready to invest, check out this top 10 list of stocks to buy.

A full transcript is below.

This podcast was recorded on Aug. 7, 2026.

Travis Hoium: Would you buy a doughnut-shaped AI device? Motley Fool Hidden Gems Investing starts now. Welcome to Motley Fool Hidden Gems Investing. I'm Travis Hoium. I'm joined today by Lou Whiteman and Jon Quast. Guys, we're going to get to that doughnut-shaped AI device in just a moment, but I do want to cover the latest news that came out just a few minutes before we started recording. That is the jobs report for the month of July. Lou, the U.S. economy, at least according to this first reading, and these get revised over time, lost 23,000 jobs. The estimate was for 83,000 jobs to be gained, but the unemployment rate fell 4.1%. The strange thing here, if you are not into these market dynamics, is that the market is actually up, at least in pre-market trading.

Lou Whiteman: Right, which I think makes sense because it at least maybe puts the idea of not raising rates on the table, which I think we were thinking was going to happen because the Fed's dual mandate is to fight inflation and protect employment. All the focus of late has been on inflation. If employment is weak, then maybe that does stall things. But really, I don't think the market is shocked by this report because I don't think we should be. The participation rate is the lowest it's been since COVID. That is the denominator on the unemployment rate so that I don't focus on. I think this report and the last month, too, where it missed expectations, it's telling us what we already knew. It's not a red-hot employment market. It's also not a falling-off-the-cliff employment market. I think the employment side of a mandate speaks for a lack of action among the Fed, but watching closely. I think the question is still the same: is inflation bad enough that the Fed has to move, or will they just buy their time and not do anything, and maybe we got a slight leaning towards do nothing for longer?

Travis Hoium: Jon, this does seem to be at least the short-term reaction is, what is the Fed going to do based on this report? Obviously, inflation is still something to think about but as we look at earnings reports, and we're going to talk about big picture takeaways from earning season in just a moment, it does strike me that some of the weakness in the economy that some companies talk about is showing up in these job numbers, and that has me at least a little worried about what are earnings going to look like going forward if fewer people have jobs?

Jon Quast: That would definitely be a thing if fewer people have jobs. I just don't think that this report showed us enough to make us overly concerned about that in the moment. Of course, we're always looking forward and monitoring that and making sure that jobs aren't falling off a cliff in the future, but they certainly aren't right now. I do know that from the government's perspective, it's a weird place to be. Yes, it wants a hot economy, but it also does want those interest rates to come down, and that's harder to do the hotter the economy is. So maybe this is the middling report that the government hopes for so that we can at least start not raising rates and getting them down because so much of the national budget at this point is going to interest, and so it would lower interest rates.

Lou Whiteman: Yeah, that's not happening, sorry. But I think it's important to really look at these numbers and not just take the big macro. A lot of the weakness was retail and leisure, and that is likely the World Cup reaction. Hospitality shed 40,000 jobs after the World Cup, and this is, again, heading away from the summer season. You're definitely hiring their sports equipment jobs. Sports and leisure equipment jobs, though, were great. Again, I am very cautious, especially Travis, as you say, this will be revised a lot of times. Could get a lot worse, could get a lot better, but there was nothing in here saying the sky is falling. There's nothing here that's saying that things are robust. This, again, speaks to Fed inaction. I think, yeah, sure, the government would like to pay less on interest rates, but interest rates are fine. Interest rates are still below where they have been for most of the last three decades. Businesses can survive here. I don't want to say Goldilocks, because if anything, everything is glass half empty, but there is a lot of water in the glass, at least.

Travis Hoium: Let's turn our attention to earnings because we've gotten through most of earning season. We still have a bunch of reports from smaller companies next week but a lot of the big companies have reported. We've heard from a lot of the companies that are in The Motley Fool universe that are very popular. The Trade Desk reported last night. We'll talk about them in a moment. Shopify. Lou, as you look at the earnings season, what are your big-picture takeaways? Obviously, AI is something that we're all thinking about, talking about. How much is that spending happening? But was there a way that the market was reacting that told the story of the quarter to you?

Lou Whiteman: I think the story of the quarter is resilience. We're focused on AI, but the rest of the economy, the rest of the companies reporting are looking OK. I think outside of software, a lot of the big movers were in software, but if you look banks, really strong, airlines, surprisingly strong. There's just a lot of success stories outside of the tech trade. I just did a quick count this morning, 45 companies from the S&P 500, probably more that raised full-year guidance in this quarter. Analysts’ estimates for S&P 500 earnings per share, so a wider index, not company specific. They're up 3% since late June, just the consensus estimate. Things are doing OK. There's been a lot of volatilities, there's been a lot of gloom and doom on the AI trade. That is where our attention is, but I think if you go to flyover country, baby, or if you go off of the center of attention. Similar to the jobs report, I'm not saying things are great, but they're not bad.

Travis Hoium: Jon, what has been your takeaway looking at earnings this year?

Jon Quast: I don't know why they call it a consensus estimate because it seems like we're always expecting a different number. What is interesting is that what Lou is saying is absolutely correct, and I think that the word choice that he just had of resilience was an excellent choice. Yet there are some interesting reactions where a company is perhaps beating that consensus estimate, and yet it almost is like the market expected it, and the reaction is either very little to the positive. I think of many of the top AI trade stocks in that bucket, many of them showing numbers that were even ahead of what the consensus estimate was or even internal projections, and yet the reaction from the market is a 5% gain or something like that. That's interesting to me.

Then some companies that are outside the AI trade, seeing their stocks get hammered 10% or so, even though the numbers coming in better than expected and raising that guidance. There is an interesting reaction. It's just anecdotal, I don't know how pervasive that trend actually is. I haven't done the numbers on that, but there are a large number of companies that are coming in better than expected, and yet, not all those stocks seeing the benefit from the market and so do with that what you will.

Travis Hoium: Jon, do you think that part of that is still the disruption story? I just think about company like Uber. Uber reported this week pretty good numbers. They're growing their bookings over 20% year over year. They said they're going to be in 15 cities with autonomous vehicles, and yet the stock was down, and the biggest thing that always sticks out to me is investors just have questions about, are they just going to get crushed by Waymo?

Jon Quast: I think that's definitely part of it. We're investors and we're thinking about the future. We're not thinking about the last three months and for some companies that the disruption question is on the table, it hasn't satisfactorily been answered yet for investors. Uber is in that bucket. How much is AI innovation going to drive driverless technology forward and then disrupt the business model? That's the question that investors are asking. I think of other companies such as financial technology, enterprise software, these sorts of things. There are companies that are delivering good numbers, and yet the existential question is still on the table, and it hasn't been satisfactorily answered even with the last three months being good.

Travis Hoium: Yeah, company like Meta fits that bucket to me, as well. Didn't satisfactorily answer, how are they going to make money on all of this AI spending? Lots of questions yet to be answered for the rest of the year. When we come back, we're going to talk about this AI donut that OpenAI is reportedly developing. You're listening to Motley Fool Hidden Gems Investing.

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Travis Hoium: Welcome back to Motley Fool Hidden Gems Investing. The big topic as we prepared for the show over the past 24 hours or so was this new device that Bloomberg is reporting that OpenAI is developing. If you've been following this, OpenAI has been stealing people from Apple for years at this point. Jon Ive joined the company with the acquisition of his startup. This has become now a lawsuit between the two companies. But what in the world are those people actually making? That is what a lot of us have been wondering because oftentimes, a new piece of hardware comes with a new technology paradigm. Lou, the piece of hardware that they are reportedly making is a hockey puck-sized doughnut with a speaker and some moving components. I don't know exactly what that means, but is this the thing you're excited to jump all over?

Lou Whiteman: Well, first of all, we should say that Jony Ive is not involved in a lawsuit. OpenAI bought that company fair and square, but since there's lawyers running around everywhere, we should say that. But yeah, look, Travis, if you're like me, you can't walk down Main Street in your hometown without hearing someone say, gosh, I love AI, but I just wish there was a $300 device I carry around my house to interact with it. That's what we all want?

Travis Hoium: So you're a little skeptical?

Lou Whiteman: Well, look, we do have a device that we carry around our house to access AI, and it works really daggone well. We can use it to search. We can use it to play wordle, or we can do whatever we want. It's got a great battery life. It fits in your pocket. It's the phone. That is what we have to be better than to compel people to buy a new $300 speaker. I guess it's going to dance around when it's talking to you. I don't get it. I really don't. The good news, bad news for Apple shareholders here. If you were putting into your models a huge windfall from just the profit sharing that Apple is going to get after there's a settlement on this intellectual property thing for all of the OpenAI revenue they're going to generate from hardware, you may be disappointed here because I don't think there's going to be a lot of profits to share here. This is a device because OpenAI needs a device. I don't think this is solving a problem anyone actually has.

Travis Hoium: Do you see this any more positive, Jon?

Jon Quast: Well, no, not for the doughnut-shaped item in particular. Bloomberg reporting that it's going to be doughnut-shaped so it can sit on a nightstand or a counter, but I checked my nightstands and counters this morning, and there are many non-doughnut-shaped things sitting on them but I'm actually in the market for an AI hardware device right now. I'm looking at some very strongly that our recording devices, they will record conversations. They will transcribe those conversations and then provide AI summaries and action points automatically in an app. That to me, has utility.

For myself personally having multiple jobs, having many conversations with many people throughout the day, I do forget things, and I have to take physical notes. That would be simpler. There's no screen. You can have it out on the table as far as moving parts. There's a physical toggle switch. I would imagine that's what OpenAI is looking at with their own device. But here's the thing. The ones that I'm looking at, the utility is debatable, so I'm debating that in my mind, but it's also coming in at a third the price of what this item is. You look at Apple strategy over the years, that premium pricing that they demand, that has a reputation behind it, a hardware reputation that OpenAI does not have. How is it going to charge a premium pricing on its own AI hardware device right out of the gate when there are other devices out on the market at a much lower price and aesthetically pleasing as they are? This, I don't think is going to gain traction. To me, it's the Amazon Fire Phone.

Travis Hoium: Lou, the thing I always think about with a lot of these AI technologies and the potential devices is the paradigms that we've gone through in the past. It seemed so clear to me when the PC first came out, the mid '80s or '90s, whenever you got your first PC, that was such a big difference from a typewriter. Then when mobile phones came out, especially smartphones, you went from, now I got to go to my computer to access the Internet to, oh, my gosh, there's a screen that has all of this stuff available to me in the world is my oyster. I have such a harder time making the same leap with some of these AI devices. Is that 10X? It's got to be 10X better to actually replace a phone? Is that what you're indicating here?

Lou Whiteman: This is both Apple's greatest success and greatest failure as a growth company now, is that the phone is really good. That's exactly it, Travis, is that to change consumer behavior, you have to give the consumer something they don't have today. I don't know why the doughnut versus your phone makes things any better than it was today. I just look, because we need to is not a good reason. It has to be because it's worth it for you, the consumer, or the consumer won't buy it.

Travis Hoium: Let's move on to a big earnings report that happened overnight. That was The Trade Desk. Jon, this is one of those companies that has always been loved by the market until 12 or 18 months ago, and then things really went off the rails. After this recent earnings report, at least, in premarket trading and post-market after the report came out, shares were down somewhere around 20% off about 90% from their high. What went wrong at The Trade Desk?

Jon Quast: Its execution. You look at the last three quarters. We had 12% growth in the first quarter, only 3% growth in this quarter and forecasting potentially a 12% drop in revenue in the upcoming quarter. This is supposed to be a huge growth business, it's the market is expanding that they're in, so this is an execution thing. Jeff Green, CEO, coming out of the gate here and blaming the macro conditions, something outside of its control.

Travis Hoium: I want to highlight that because I listened to at least the first half of the call, and he spent 10 minutes talking in detail about, here's the macro conditions, and this is why Nike isn't spending more and all these things. I was going, this is excuses. This is always a red flag for me as an investor.

Jon Quast: I'm sorry. This doesn't pass the sniff test here. He normally comes out with long monologues talking against these walled garden businesses of Meta Platforms, Alphabet, and Amazon did not mention walled gardens on the call, and I believe that that was very wise on his part because you look at those numbers, all of those growing by double digits at much higher revenue basis, whereas The Trade Desk is projecting this shortfall, this deceleration, this decline in revenue in the upcoming quarter. To me, that is an internal problem of execution. You also look at other companies that do have a lot of overlap with The Trade Desk. The Trade Desk is very heavily weighted towards consumer package goods and cars in their advertising mix. Not one to one, but there are other companies in the space, adTech, Magnite, and PubMatic reporting double-digit growth. Even companies like Zeta is posting very strong growth rates, and so to me, this doesn't pass the sniff test from Jeff Green and The Trade Desk.

Lou Whiteman: I think the wall garden is winning. I'm not going to just say execution is nothing management could do, but the Internet is getting more closed off. The Trade Desk has always said, we have a solution for that. We're not seeing it. Look, guys, I don't think this gets any better. I keep hearing that AI bots are going to do while they're shopping for us if not actually buying. I'm a bit skeptical there, but I do think more of this is going to bots. Do bots respond to advertising? What world does that play?

But let's talk about Green for one second. You mentioned, the [inaudible] his statement, the quarter didn't meet the standards, but it just reinforced the belief that we are focused on the right opportunities. I think that has to ring hollow for investors at this point. That was maybe something you did three or four quarters ago when first bombed. Green needs to move upstairs. I know he has, like, nearly 50% vote power, so we're not going to activist here, but his voice is no longer resonating on Wall Street. He needs to go become executive chairman. Hopefully, he can do a better job finding a CEO than he did with finding a CFO, given how long that's taken and how many things. If Trade Desk is going to have a chance here, even if the strategy is right, even if it is just all of the macro headwinds against them, even if you concede that, there just needs to be a new face of this company for Wall Street, or things aren't going to change.

Travis Hoium: Lou, do you think that the fundamental dynamics of advertising in this digital age have changed in a way that is going to make it really hard for The Trade Desk, 'cause there are companies, like Jon said, who are doing well.

Lou Whiteman: I think The Trade Desk is having trouble adjusting to the Internet as quickly as offers, and that isn't to say they can't, but right now it's not happening.

Travis Hoium: When we come back, we're going to play Value or Value Trap. You're listening to Motley Fool Hidden Gems Investing.

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Travis Hoium: Welcome back to Motley Hidden Gems Investing. In this segment, we like to have a little bit of fun with investing, so we're going to play a game called Value or Value Trap. We're going to ask Jon and Lou whether these companies are a great value for investors or whether this is a trap that, looks really cheap, but doesn't end up being that long term. The first stock we're going to talk about, we just covered a little bit. That is The Trade Desk. But, Lou, I want to know, is this now a value? We were just going over the numbers during the break, $5 billion enterprise value. The price startings multiple on a forward basis is 6.6. By the way, all of these companies have a forward P/E under 15. Theoretically, they could be values, but is this a trap?

Lou Whiteman: Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. At this point, I'm not going to see value here until I see some articulation from them that they know how to solve the mess they're in. Right now, I think it's a trap, or it's too risky to try and catch this falling knife.

Travis Hoium: Jon?

Jon Quast: I agree with that. Value Trap for now. You point out the forward earnings multiple, but I would assume that is actually going to go up, here in the coming weeks, because the guidance showed that we're going to have a revenue decline. We don't know how long that's going to last, and the margins are getting pressured, so I don't think it's as good of a deal as it looks. It's a show me story at this point.

Travis Hoium: If you're going to have traps, I do want to hear what companies are more attractive in this space. I'm going to just throw one out because I think, one that I have been interested in recently and been adding to my position, too is Zeta Global. Here's a company that's growing almost 50% year over year. But Jon, Lou, what's on your radar in this area that is more attractive?

Lou Whiteman: I just said the Wall Garden. Give me an Amazon just because I get a lot of things going on there, but that works for me.

Jon Quast: I agree with Lou. Go with the ones that are working for sure. Meta Platforms will be at the top of my list, but Zeta is at the top of my watch list, the one that I need to do more research on.

Travis Hoium: Let's talk a little bit about Shift4. This is in the payment space, and some of these companies, PayPal, you can throw into this as well, have gone from being market darlings to incredible value stocks. Forward priced earnings multiple is 7.4 for Shift4, but after they reported earnings earlier this week, shares fell almost 20%. Jon, I know this is when you follow a little bit, is Shift4 today value or value trap?

Jon Quast: Value all day long. If you are a Shift4 shareholder, as I am, you are used to the market just dogging on the earnings results that are consistently good. This is a company growing at a very high growth rate and doing so profitably, not really any delusion to shareholders to speak of. I think that this is a company that is going through a little bit of a transition as it expands into more international markets. The financial technology sector, it's not just unloved. It's hated by investors right now, so that's going against it. But you look at the business itself. This is one of the few companies in the space putting up growth and profits.

Lou Whiteman: I guess, Toast? I don't know. This feels so commoditized to me, and it doesn't feel like everyone could be a winner. I'm not sure I really like any of these in the long run. I don't know if this is a value trap as in there's anything really wrong with the business, but I don't find it a compelling investment. I'd buy Toast before I'd buy Shift4.

Travis Hoium: Both companies that I have on my watch list, I have not bought either of them, but I actually like the case for both of those. Let's talk about one that has been the talk of the market over the past year or so that is Micron. Shares are actually down 26% from their peak. But if you look at the forward priced earnings multiple, it's still just six. Lou, with everything going on in the memory market, is Micron a value today or a value trap?

Lou Whiteman: This, to me, is a good textbook example. If I ever have to go back and teach a college class about why there is no one financial metric that you should focus on and make all your decisions basically. That's a great P/E, but this is a commoditized business, and the commodity is red hot, so is that sustainable? I don't think it is. I still think that this is a value trap. I know Micron. I actually like Micron better than any of their competitors because I think Micron has made more of an effort to differentiate itself and actually try to break out of a commodity trap. I'd rather be late on this one buying in, though, because it's still, just I know the history and memory, and I know how this story ends.

Jon Quast: It's not the first time that Micron has been valued this cheaply. In fact, I think in a lot of the past cycles, it has been valued at, I know for a fact, it's been valued at under 10 times forward earnings, many times in the past. I would say, though, even though I agree directionally with Lou, I would say this is a value stock. The reason being that I would say it is a value stock is that I think that the red-hot commoditization or the red-hotness of the commodity right now is going to continue for several years more. I don't think that this is a short boom-and-bust like it's been in the past. I really think that there is so much to be done in the AI space. Memory is still there's such a shortness of supply that I do believe that Micron is able to maintain its pricing power for I would say the next three years, at least.

Travis Hoium: I've got a little quiz for you because the last time that memory was this hot was early in 2000, the year 2000, 26 years ago. Jon, do you know how far Micron's stock fell from its peak in mid 2000 to its low and I've got that at late 2008?

Jon Quast: I would imagine it's over 90% because it took it, I think, 20 years to recover and hit recapture highs.

Travis Hoium: Ninety-eight drawdown, 98.2% to be exact. This is one of those markets that if you get it right, you can have a 10X stock like we've had over the past 18 months or so. But, man, if you get the timing wrong, this can fall apart really quickly, so this does make me a little bit nervous as an investor. Let's talk about Salesforce. This is another one of these companies that you would think has a lot of staying power but has had trouble in the market, Jon, is Salesforce a value today or a value trap?

Jon Quast: It's a value trap, in my opinion, for a variety of reasons. But as you look at what this company is doing, I think that it is taking on a huge risk as it tries to change its business model from a per seat business model to a per task business model. When you integrate AI tooling into your product, but then you start charging per task, you're really not looking too much different from just the direct AI tools that are available themselves because you're paying for tokens when it comes to a coding AI agent. I don't think that's a smart move. I think that there's a lot of aggressiveness here with high goodwill on the balance sheet and it does look cheap, but I do wonder about this business long term, so for that reason, I'd say value trap.

Lou Whiteman: Probably more bullish on the business' survivability than Jon, but I'm not really compelled to buy in here. I'm pretty lukewarm on value trap. We have decelerating growth. We have a lot of headwinds, and as Jon says, there's a lot of debt, just a lot of garbage on the balance sheet. Also, my fantasy in this world is to see Slack disappear, and since that's so obvious, I'm rooting against them for that reason, but I feel like this is likely just going to be not get worse but not get a lot better for a while.

Travis Hoium: Lou, anything in this space that does intrigue you?

Lou Whiteman: Not particularly. I do think there is a path for, and it might be a company that Jon is going to talk about on the radar, but I do think that companies are going to emerge that can actually package and use AI to actually sell AI value to enterprise customers. I do think there's a path here. I don't think Salesforce is the best vehicle for that, but I do think that that's coming.

Travis Hoium: This is going to be such an interesting case study in the disruptors and the legacy companies because it does seem like Salesforce, The Trade Desk, they are serving some of those bigger older companies that don't necessarily have the disruption mentality of a lot of their competitors. Let's talk about another one that we have talked about a few times on this show always seems to be a bit of a value that is Adobe. Jon, Adobe's shares are currently trading for just 10 times earnings, and the stock's in a 62% drawdown. Is this a value or a value trap?

Jon Quast: Lou, I hate to be negative Nancy here, but I'm going to go with value trap again. The reason I'm going to go value trap is I am seeing concerns over growth. I am seeing concerns when it comes to margin. We have ongoing questions in leadership, and then there's also the prioritization of the premium model. This is what management is saying it wants to focus on, get these free users into the ecosystem. But to me, that's moving the wrong direction. It signals to me that the creative space is becoming more competitive due to just superior AI tooling that is out there. I do wonder about this business, I'm not ready to buy into Adobe at this valuation, even though it does look attractive.

Lou Whiteman: I took a flyer on this one, so I have to say value. I mean, I get the risks, and I think they're real. I am still skeptical that the people really using Adobe are going to switch over anytime quickly, especially with Adobe working on their own AI tools and trying to make their own tools. Again, if AI tools ge really good, there's going to be a lot of corporations saying we can save money here, but with tokens, will they? Stuff like that, I do think that there's a runway for Adobe to figure it out. The management turnover is unfortunate time and given everything that's going on. I mean, look, a person has done a great job, and it's been there decades, so I get it. But that's unfortunate. But I have hope for this one so I'll say value.

Travis Hoium: I want to quickly touch on one of the companies that has actually outperformed the market over a period of time and also outperformed its high-profile competitor, Tesla. That is General Motors trading for just six times forward earnings. Lou, I'm going to let you go first because I know you're always my negative voice in my head when it comes to automakers. But is this a value? Have they actually got this figured out with a reasonably good strategy in autonomy, too?

Lou Whiteman: They do, and it's still not good value to me, because this is just such a cutthroat business. I mean, they are very good at what they do, but I am long-term focused, and at best, with an automaker you trade cycles, and I'm just not interested in doing it. Their margins stink even when things are going well. There is no more complex supply chain in the world. Not even any of my defense contracts or anything like that, than the automakers. You're asking for trouble if you try and go long term in an automaker, so every time it looks appealing, this is just Lucy in the football all over again.

Jon Quast: I would agree with Lou here is that maybe the stock looks attractive, but for me, the automakers, the businesses never look all that attractive to me. That is why I am disinclined to ever get into GM or others. I have looked at Ford in the past, and just at the end of the day, I don't love the business, and so for that reason, even when the stock does look attractively priced, I stay away. Now, of course, you point out this has been a stock that has been gaining, so I have been missing out here, but it's just not one that I am attracted to because of the business.

Travis Hoium: Always one of the toughest debates for an investor when you see a stock that looks cheap, but the question is, really, is it long term? Hopefully, that is helpful in understanding. Some of these cheap-looking stocks today, when we come back, we are going to get to the stocks on our radar. You're listening to Motley Fool Hidden Gems investing. 

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Travis Hoium: As always, people on the program may have interest in the stocks they talk about and The Motley Fool may have formal recommendations for or against, so don't buy or sell stocks based solely on what you hear. All personal finance content follows The Motley Fool's editorial standards and is not approved by advertisers. Advertisements are sponsored content and provided for informational purposes only. To see our full advertising disclosure, please check out our show notes.

I did want to touch on one of the bigger topics of the week, and that is Alphabet losing a bunch of its best researchers, people who have been there. Jeff Dean has been there for I think it was 27 years. This is not the first time, Jon, they have lost some of their major talent, but this is now a trend over the past six months or so. They're showing really good numbers at GCP, but the existential question seems to be getting stronger for Alphabet. Is AI going to be disruptive if they lose their smartest people? What do you think?

Jon Quast: I don't know what to make of some of these announcements of the departures from Google talent. With Jeff Dean in particular, he's been at Alphabet so long. You have to imagine that he's accrued somewhat of a nest egg, and who can blame him for going out and starting his own company to pursue something at this point that he wants to pursue. I mean, that's what I would be tempted to do if I was in his position. It's hard to fault him too much for that. You look at some of these companies too. Anthropic losing some talent, yes, but also gaining some talent from Google as well. You have somebody such as Jon Jumper, who is a big part of Google's AlphaFold, and I really think AlphaFold is a really important thing that Google is doing that we don't talk about enough, trying to figure out how proteins fold, and I think it's going to be revolutionary for medicine and more. But Jumper leaving Alphabet for Anthropic.

Anthropic is also gaining some talent. I mean, they're losing talent, but they're also gaining talent because all the chairs or people keep jumping from one boat to the next. It makes sense because changes happen in this space so quickly that businesses and models take new directions. It makes sense that as talent is looking at where its own ship is sailing, that as they change directions really quickly, that I'm going to jump on a different boat that's more in the direction I want to go.

Lou Whiteman: This is all just, I think, parlor gossip. I don't think it's investable. AI I don't think it really tells us anything we don't know about the frontier models. We don't know that Google doesn't have a 50% stake in whatever Dean's doing next.

Travis Hoium: They did say that they have a stake in the company, and he's going to be running on GCP.

Lou Whiteman: They're moving some of the more speculative stuff off balance sheet. That's OK. As an investor, it's just go play your games.

Travis Hoium: The other thing that's so interesting is Google was the company that the show Silicon Valley was making fun of being the place that you just go to work and collect a giant paycheck. But now, we're really worried about losing specific people, so it does seem to be the market talking out of both sides with its mouth. I think the thing that is undeniable with Alphabet and Google in particular is the company has more and better infrastructure than any of these other companies, whether you're talking about hyperscalers or the start-ups. Anthropic is building its business on top of GCP. A lot for investors to digest, but I don't think Alphabet is going to go anywhere. Let's get to the stocks on our radar. Jon, I'm going to have you go first. What are you looking at this week?

Jon Quast: I'm looking at ServiceNow. This is ticker symbol, NOW. I am not a big fan of enterprise software stocks, generally speaking, but this is one that stands out in my opinion. This company is embedded across many important businesses around the world, doing just some customer service management, some information technology service management, just some really boring stuff behind the scenes. But it is really embedded and this whole space, I believe, is poised to be disrupted due to AI agents. Nvidia's CEO, Jensen Huang, saying that ServiceNow is actually at the forefront of deploying AI agents. If you've tried to build an AI agent on your own, you realize how difficult it is. If ServiceNow can make it easier for businesses, I think that gets adopted. The company is still growing at over a 20% growth rate. You look at the remaining performance obligations still growing at an over 20% growth rate, as well. Trading at around 30 times forward earnings is not particularly cheap, but not unreasonable given that growth. ServiceNow is one that I'm looking at.

Travis Hoium: We need our thoughts from Dan Boyd behind the glass. Dan, what do you think about ServiceNow?

Dan Boyd: ServiceNow is one of these companies that just does stuff in the background, and you know I love that stuff. The companies that nobody knows quite what they do, but they must do something really important. It's got to be important.

Lou Whiteman: Especially now.

Dan Boyd: ServiceNow.

Travis Hoium: Lou, what are you looking at this week?

Lou Whiteman: Dan, I'm going to give you something where I do know what they do, but you can't see it every day. I'm looking at warehouse automation company Symbotic, ticker SYM. Company beat on earnings and revenue this week, but Wall Street was disappointed by the guidance, or a lack of enthusiasm around the guidance. Stock traded down about 10%. Dan, I think the market has this one wrong. Symbotic is methodically building its business. They added a really important new customer, Southern Glazer, a bigger beer and wine distributor in the quarter. Symbotic is conservative in the way it books future business. It's basically just bolting in one warehouse at a time on these big things, even if they're going to get 30 eventually. That understates the guidance. I think there's huge growth potential here, and Dan, I'm convinced there's a whole new generation of warehouse automation that's actually going to create a lot of value coming out of this AI wave. Symbotic has a big role to play here. Stock’s not cheap relative to current business, but I'm bullish that that current business is going to grow from here, and this one is really intriguing to me.

Travis Hoium: Dan, what do you think about warehouse robotics?

Dan Boyd: I've never worked in a warehouse, but get this. I'm looking up Symbotic, and apparently their robots can travel up to 25 miles an hour, which again, I've never worked in a warehouse, so I don't know how all that stuff works, but it seems very scary to me to have a robot blasting around at 25 miles an hour while I'm trying to walk to the bathroom.

Lou Whiteman: That's why the bathrooms got to be separate. The robot bathrooms are separate, so you're fine.

Travis Hoium: Dan, what's going on your watch list?

Dan Boyd: I'm going fast robots. Let's go Symbotic.

Travis Hoium: Congratulations to Lou. Thanks, everybody. See you here next time.

Datadog: Maintaining Consistent Revenue Trajectories Over Recent QuartersDatadog (DDOG +4.70%) primarily provides a cloud-based software service that helps commercial businesses monitor and analyze their internal technology systems.

While completing the strategic acquisition of Adaptive ML to expand internal research capabilities in the artificial intelligence space, and making available several new developer tools to the general public, it generated a net income margin of 4% for the quarter ended June 30, 2026.

The Trade Desk: Navigating Volatile Revenue Trends and Leadership ChangesThe Trade Desk (TTD +7.93%) primarily offers a self-service digital software platform enabling professional advertising buyers to manage data-driven ad campaigns.

It recently navigated an extensive executive leadership overhaul and faced ongoing shareholder investigations related to executive fiduciary duties, while expanding its international integrations and generating an operating margin of 14% for the quarter ended June 30, 2026.

Why Revenue Matters for Investors Analyzing These BusinessesRevenue functions as an essential foundational metric that helps investors continuously monitor the total gross sales a commercial business accumulates over time before any standard operating costs, employee salaries, corporate taxes, or other mandatory financial obligations are deducted from the final ledger. Tracking this figure helps investors measure a company's baseline growth trajectory over time.

Quarterly Revenue Comparison for Datadog and The Trade DeskQuarter (Period End)Datadog RevenueThe Trade Desk RevenueQ3 2024 (Sept. 2024)$690.0 million$628.0 millionQ4 2024 (Dec. 2024)$737.7 million$741.0 millionQ1 2025 (March 2025)$761.6 million$616.0 millionQ2 2025 (June 2025)$826.8 million$694.0 millionQ3 2025 (Sept. 2025)$885.7 million$739.4 millionQ4 2025 (Dec. 2025)$953.2 million$846.8 millionQ1 2026 (March 2026)$1.0 billion$688.9 millionQ2 2026 (June 2026)$1.1 billion$715.1 millionData source: Company filings. Data as of Aug. 12, 2026.

Foolish TakeComparing the revenue trends between these tech companies reveals Datadog’s consistent quarter-over-quarter sales increases, a testament to the strong demand for its solutions. The Trade Desk is experiencing a more typical year-over-year growth trend.

Datadog expects quarterly growth to continue, forecasting to exit 2026 with about $4.5 billion in sales, up from $3.4 billion in 2025. Meanwhile, The Trade Desk anticipates third-quarter revenue to reach at least $650 million.

While The Trade Desk experiences seasonal ups and downs typical of the advertising industry, its Q3 forecast would represent a drop from the prior year’s $739 million. If that proves to be the case, the company’s trend of year-over-year sales growth would end, a concerning outcome for investors. Already in Q2, its net income of $64.4 million was a decline from 2025’s $90.1 million, so if its revenue falls in Q3, net income could shrink further.

As these revenue indicators suggest, Datadog’s business is booming while The Trade Desk appears headed for a difficult time ahead.

TTD trades near five-year valuation lows as revenue growth slows and earnings estimates weaken, while CTV and retail media preserve long-term upside.

After announcing Q2-26 results that were well below analysts' expectations, shares of The Trade Desk declined by another ~25% post-earnings. Relative to its all-time high of $141.53 reached in December 2024, TTD's share price has now collapsed by a massive 90% to a price level first seen in August 2018. In addition to a challenging macro environment for some advertisers, the company is facing stronger competition from alternative DSPs in a context of declining traffic for the open web.

Posted by Defense World Staff on Aug 11th, 2026

The Trade Desk (NASDAQ:TTD – Get Free Report) saw unusually large options trading on Monday. Investors purchased 70,402 call options on the company. This represents an increase of approximately 27% compared to the average volume of 55,491 call options.

Key Headlines Impacting Trade Desk Here are the key news stories impacting Trade Desk this week:

Positive Sentiment: Unusual options activity provided a limited bullish signal: traders purchased 70,402 call options, 27% above typical daily call volume. However, this does not necessarily indicate a change in the company’s fundamentals. Neutral Sentiment: CEO Jeffrey Green has continued buying shares, including approximately 6 million shares over the past six months. Investors are weighing that insider confidence against the stock’s steep decline and weaker business outlook. The Trade Desk Stock Opinions on Earnings Miss and Guidance Cut Negative Sentiment: The latest earnings report and third-quarter guidance disappointed investors. Revenue was reported at approximately $715.1 million, up only about 3% year over year, while the outlook pointed to further deceleration. The results raised concerns about weakening demand and limited near-term growth in programmatic advertising. Why The Trade Desk Shares Are Plunging Today Negative Sentiment: Analysts responded by cutting ratings and price targets. BNP Paribas Exane downgraded TTD to “underperform” with a $10 target, while DA Davidson lowered its target to $16 and maintained a “neutral” rating. Robert W. Baird, Evercore, BMO Capital Markets, and RBC also reduced their ratings or outlooks. Additional target cuts included $14 from Cantor Fitzgerald and $12 from Rosenblatt Securities. Why Is The Trade Desk Stock Falling on Monday? Negative Sentiment: The selloff has been more severe than declines among some advertising technology peers, suggesting investors view The Trade Desk’s earnings execution and growth profile as company-specific weaknesses rather than simply an industry-wide problem. Trade Desk Stock Is Falling Today Negative Sentiment: Institutional positioning also appears cautious, with more funds reducing holdings than adding shares in the latest quarter. This reinforces pressure on TTD as investors reassess its valuation and competitive moat. Trade Desk Stock Performance NASDAQ:TTD opened at $13.39 on Tuesday. The firm’s fifty day moving average is $18.62 and its 200-day moving average is $22.55. Trade Desk has a 52 week low of $12.83 and a 52 week high of $56.77. The firm has a market cap of $6.29 billion, a P/E ratio of 15.94, a P/E/G ratio of 0.67 and a beta of 1.04.

Analysts Set New Price Targets TTD has been the subject of a number of recent analyst reports. Wedbush set a $21.00 price objective on Trade Desk and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research report on Friday, May 8th. Needham & Company LLC dropped their price target on shares of Trade Desk from $25.00 to $19.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research report on Friday. HSBC lowered shares of Trade Desk from a “hold” rating to a “reduce” rating and set a $10.00 target price on the stock. in a report on Monday. Evercore cut Trade Desk from an “outperform” rating to an “in-line” rating and set a $13.00 price target for the company. in a report on Friday. Finally, KeyCorp downgraded shares of Trade Desk from an “overweight” rating to a “sector weight” rating in a research note on Friday, May 8th. Four investment analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, twenty-six have assigned a Hold rating and nine have assigned a Sell rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat.com, Trade Desk has a consensus rating of “Reduce” and an average target price of $19.33.

View Our Latest Stock Report on TTD

Insider Transactions at Trade Desk In other Trade Desk news, Director Samantha Jacobson sold 53,681 shares of the stock in a transaction on Thursday, May 28th. The shares were sold at an average price of $21.14, for a total value of $1,134,816.34. Following the completion of the sale, the director owned 13,099 shares in the company, valued at $276,912.86. This trade represents a 80.38% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available through this link. Company insiders own 11.41% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Trading of Trade Desk Hedge funds have recently modified their holdings of the stock. Brighton Jones LLC increased its stake in Trade Desk by 3.8% in the fourth quarter. Brighton Jones LLC now owns 4,586 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $539,000 after purchasing an additional 169 shares in the last quarter. Bison Wealth LLC boosted its holdings in Trade Desk by 24.3% during the fourth quarter. Bison Wealth LLC now owns 2,480 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $291,000 after purchasing an additional 485 shares during the last quarter. Woodline Partners LP boosted its stake in shares of Trade Desk by 75.5% in the 1st quarter. Woodline Partners LP now owns 5,275 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $289,000 after buying an additional 2,269 shares during the last quarter. Cerity Partners LLC grew its stake in Trade Desk by 46.6% in the 2nd quarter. Cerity Partners LLC now owns 59,785 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $4,304,000 after purchasing an additional 19,015 shares during the period. Finally, AXA S.A. increased its holdings in Trade Desk by 14.7% during the second quarter. AXA S.A. now owns 42,819 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $3,083,000 after buying an additional 5,487 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors own 67.77% of the company’s stock.

Trade Desk Company Profile (Get Free Report)

The Trade Desk, Inc (NASDAQ: TTD) is a technology company that provides a demand-side platform (DSP) for programmatic digital advertising. Its platform enables advertisers, agencies and other buyers to plan, purchase and measure ad inventory across digital channels, including display, video, mobile, audio, native and connected TV. By centralizing real‑time bidding, audience targeting and inventory access, the company aims to help clients optimize media spend and reach audiences at scale across publishers and ad exchanges.

Founded in 2009 by Jeff Green and Dave Pickles, The Trade Desk grew from a focus on programmatic display into a global ad‑tech provider.

See Also Five stocks we like better than Trade Desk SoundHound AI Sends a Loud Signal After Its Q2 Earnings Beat 3 Dividend Champion Utilities for a Market That Can’t Sit Still These 3 Most-Upgraded Stocks Have Almost Nothing to Do With AI First Solar’s Profit Engine Faces a New Policy Test in Washington Receive News & Ratings for Trade Desk Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Trade Desk and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter.

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The Trade Desk (NASDAQ:TTD | TTD Price Prediction) stock is a clear underperformer in ad tech Monday afternoon, with TTD shares down 5% to $13.09 as sellers keep punishing the name after last week’s earnings report. The programmatic ad platform is now both the cheapest and the most damaged story in its peer group.

The peers are softer today, but only modestly. AppLovin (NASDAQ:APP) stock is down 2% to $341.90, and Magnite (NASDAQ:MGNI) shares are down 2% to $24.17. The Invesco QQQ Trust (NASDAQ:QQQ) ETF is down 0.24% to $721.38, showing this isn’t a market-wide selloff.

The split matters: this is a Trade Desk execution problem, and the price action across the group makes that plain to investors watching in real time.

Earnings Miss and Weak Guidance Drive the Selloff Trade Desk reported Q2 2026 revenue of $715.06 million versus a $751.35 million consensus, with adjusted EPS of $0.34 versus $0.40 expected. The company’s Q3 revenue guidance came in at at least $650 million, below the $670.88 million consensus, with adjusted EBITDA guided to approximately $160 million. Customer retention held above 95%.

The growth deceleration is stark. Revenue expanded just 3% year over year (YoY), versus 19% in Q2 2025, and Trade Desk’s adjusted EBITDA margin compressed to 34% from 39% a year earlier. The 8-K filing also implied a potential sequential revenue decline in Q3.

Trade Desk CEO Jeff Green stated that the quarter “did not meet the standard we set for ourselves.” Analysts flagged a structural concern beyond the miss: advertisers are shifting from open-web programmatic auctions toward cheaper fixed-price programmatic guaranteed deals, amid AI-accelerated shifts and rising competition.

Analyst Downgrades Pile On The ratings actions turned a bad quarter into a rout. HSBC downgraded Trade Desk stock to Reduce from Hold and cut its price target by 50% to $10. Meanwhile, Citi downgraded TTD stock to Sell with an $11 price target, and Morgan Stanley cut its target to $13 from $26 while keeping an Equal Weight rating.

The cluster of targets in the $10 to $13 range now sits right at Trade Desk stock’s current level, giving traders a defined battleground. Green also announced a leadership reset, with a new CFO, CMO, Chief Commercial Officer, and Chief Business Development Officer stepping in. That’s a meaningful signal that management sees the execution gap as real.

This isn’t the first brutal post-earnings move for Trade Desk. The Q2 2025 miss triggered a 39% single-day plunge, and Q1 2026’s miss opened the door to a further 16% decline over the following 30 days. Trade Desk stock has been repeatedly punished for execution stumbles, and today extends the pattern.

Peers Trade Softer, but It’s a Trade Desk Story AppLovin’s catalyst is already old news. Its own Q2 revenue miss and muted guidance last week drew price-target cuts from RBC and Needham, plus a downgrade from Wells Fargo. AppLovin stock is off just 2% today because that reset already happened.

Magnite has no fresh company-specific catalyst Monday. MGNI shares are giving back part of a strong recent run and remain up 49% year to date (YTD), a sharp contrast to Trade Desk stock’s 66% YTD decline.

The valuation gap tells the rest of the story. Trade Desk stock now trades at a trailing 12-month P/E ratio of 15.49x, versus 26.27x for AppLovin and 21.98x for Magnite. TTD screens as reasonably valued on this metric, though the bears cite execution and structural pressures rather than a rich multiple.

The QQQ ETF is a broad, unleveraged large-cap NASDAQ 100 fund concentrated in mega-cap tech, so ad tech is a small slice of the exposure. The fund’s near-flat move Monday tells us today’s selloff is contained to Trade Desk rather than spread across the sector.

What to Watch Next Investors can watch for whether Trade Desk stock stabilizes near the $13 level where analyst targets now cluster, or breaks lower toward HSBC’s $10 mark. Delivery on the leadership reset matters more than the announcements themselves, and Q3 results will be the first real test of whether the turnaround plan is working.

Moreover, traders may want to watch for signs of a bounce given the collapsed valuation and the $269 million remaining on the buyback authorization. However, with the sell-side newly cautious and open-web programmatic under structural pressure, a conservative position size makes sense until Trade Desk shows the reset is translating into growth. The story is fixable, but today isn’t the day the market gives Green the benefit of the doubt.

Contact [email protected] for any questions or corrections.

10.8.2026 15:45, MSFT, AAPL, VRTX, BRK.A, BRK B, TTD, META, FERG, B, SPCX, HONA

Index Dow Jones -0,09 % na 53989,08 b., S&P 500 -0,06 % na 7752,89 b., Nasdaq Composite -0,24 % na 26627,37 b.

Americké akcie vstupují do nového týdne poklesem, když všechny hlavní indexy odepisují. Výsledková sezóna nadále pokračuje, její tempo však zpomaluje.

Z titulů tzv. MAG 7 odepisuje Apple 2,0 % poté, co Jefferies snížila doporučení na „underperform“, přičemž analytici upozorňují na obtížnou cestu k uvedení dražšího iPhonu. Naopak Meta Platforms roste 0,4 % po představení nového AI modelu Muse Glimmer, který lze provozovat na jednom počítači a uživatelé si jej mohou stáhnout a dále upravovat. Microsoft (+1,2 %) plánuje v příštím roce výrazně navýšit výrobu vlastních AI čipů. Podle The Information jedná s TSMC o zajištění kapacit pro více než 300 tis. čipů Maia 300 s dodáním v roce 2027.

Berkshire Hathaway (+2,8 %) ve 2Q více než zdvojnásobila čistý zisk na 25,67 mld. USD, zatímco provozní zisk vzrostl o 16 % na 12,98 mld. USD. Společnost zároveň odkoupila vlastní akcie za přibližně 4,5 mld. USD a poprvé po více než třech letech během čtvrtletí více akcií nakoupila, než prodala. Akcie SpaceX oslabují o 0,3 % a pohybují se okolo své IPO ceny 135 USD. Výrazněji oslabuje těžební společnost Barrick Mining (-9,0 %) po dohodě s Newmontem ohledně Nevada Gold Mines, u níž analytici upozorňují na nižší než očekávané ocenění aktiv Barricku.

Společnost Barrick Mining zveřejnila své kvartální výsledky, kdy ve 2Q vykázala očištěný zisk na akcii 0,82 USD, v souladu s očekáváním trhu. Tržby dosáhly 5,29 mld. USD a překonaly analytický konsenzus 5,15 mld. USD. Očištěný zisk EBITDA dosáhl 3,63 mld. USD oproti očekávaným 3,5 mld. USD, zatímco volné peněžní toky ve výši 515 mil. USD zaostaly za odhady Wall Street 966 mil. USD. Produkce zlata činila 796 tis. uncí a překonala očekávání 763 tis. uncí. Společnost ponechala celoroční výhled produkce zlata i mědi beze změny a očekává kapitálové výdaje v rozmezí 3,8 až 4,2 mld. USD.

Společnost Ferguson (+2,6 %) ve 2Q vykázala tržby 8,75 mld. USD, z čehož 8,34 mld. USD připadalo na americký trh. Očištěný provozní zisk dosáhl 932 mil. USD a očištěný zisk EBITDA 994 mil. USD, zatímco provozní zisk činil 893 mil. USD. Management zároveň zlepšil celoroční výhled růstu tržeb na střední jednociferné tempo z předchozího nízkého až středního jednociferného růstu. Zároveň zvýšil spodní hranici očekávané upravené provozní marže na 9,5 %, přičemž horní hranici ponechal na 9,8 %. Výhled kapitálových výdajů byl posunut na 375 až 425 mil. USD z předchozích 300 až 400 mil. USD.

Intel (-4,4 %) plánuje veřejnou nabídku akcií v objemu 15 mld. USD, čímž podle Bloombergu využívá obnoveného zájmu investorů o svůj byznys v souvislosti s boomem datových center a AI infrastruktury. BMO Capital snížila cílovou cenu z 276 na 209 USD pro akcie Honeywell Aerospace (-4,9 %), investiční doporučení bylo ponecháno na stupni „Outperform“.

Akcie Vertex Pharmaceuticals posilují (+7,0 %) poté, co výsledky studie konkurenční společnosti Sionna Therapeutics u přípravku SION-719 zaostaly za očekáváním. Výsledek oslabil vyhlídky Sionny jako potenciálního konkurenta Vertexu v léčbě cystické fibrózy.

Analytici z Morgan Stanley a HSBC snížili společnosti The Trade Desk cílovou cenu. Akcie The Trade Desk odepisují 6,0 %.

Index S&P 500 -0,06 % na 7752,89 b. Nejsilnější sektory S&P Změna Nejslabší sektory S&P Změna Energie +2,5 % Reality -1,1 % Zdravotní péče +0,7 % Utility -0,9 % Finanční sektor +0,5 % Nezbytná spotřeba -0,6 % Nejsilnější akcie S&P Změna Nejslabší akcie S&P Změna Vertex Pharmaceuticals (VRTX) +7,0 % Coherent Corp (COHR) -8,1 % APA Corp (APA) +4,0 % Trade Desk (TTD) -6,0 % Occidental Petroleum Corp (OXY) +4,0 % Lumentum Holdings (LITE) -5,4 % NetApp (NTAP) +3,9 % Honeywell Aerospace (HONA) -4,9 % Super Micro Computer (SMCI) +3,6 % Intel Corp (INTC) -4,9 %
Zdroj: Bloomberg

Marek Krejčiřík
Fio banka, a.s.
Prohlášení

Posted by Defense World Staff on Aug 8th, 2026

Dimensional Fund Advisors LP trimmed its holdings in The Trade Desk (NASDAQ:TTD – Free Report) by 14.4% in the first quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The institutional investor owned 710,982 shares of the technology company’s stock after selling 119,988 shares during the quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP owned about 0.15% of Trade Desk worth $16,128,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

A number of other large investors also recently modified their holdings of TTD. State Street Corp increased its stake in Trade Desk by 271.1% during the 3rd quarter. State Street Corp now owns 36,354,274 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $1,781,723,000 after buying an additional 26,559,005 shares during the period. Norges Bank acquired a new stake in shares of Trade Desk in the 4th quarter worth approximately $197,550,000. Federated Hermes Inc. lifted its stake in shares of Trade Desk by 1,041.1% in the 4th quarter. Federated Hermes Inc. now owns 4,710,847 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $178,824,000 after acquiring an additional 4,298,009 shares during the period. Voloridge Investment Management LLC boosted its holdings in shares of Trade Desk by 676.6% in the fourth quarter. Voloridge Investment Management LLC now owns 4,208,083 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $159,739,000 after acquiring an additional 3,666,189 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Invesco Ltd. boosted its holdings in shares of Trade Desk by 101.0% in the third quarter. Invesco Ltd. now owns 6,807,971 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $333,659,000 after acquiring an additional 3,421,074 shares in the last quarter. 67.77% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Insider Buying and Selling In other Trade Desk news, Director Samantha Jacobson sold 53,681 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Thursday, May 28th. The stock was sold at an average price of $21.14, for a total value of $1,134,816.34. Following the transaction, the director directly owned 13,099 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $276,912.86. This represents a 80.38% decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available at this hyperlink. 11.41% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

Key Headlines Impacting Trade Desk Here are the key news stories impacting Trade Desk this week:

Positive Sentiment: Customer retention remained strong, and management highlighted ongoing product improvements and major advertising partnerships. CEO Jeff Green has also reportedly purchased shares, potentially signaling confidence in the long-term opportunity. TTD Stock Sinks Over 26% On Earnings Miss, Weak Outlook Neutral Sentiment: Analysts substantially reduced price targets and ratings following the release. Needham retained a Buy rating with a $19 target, while other targets ranged from $12 to $15, reflecting significant disagreement over whether the selloff creates value or signals a prolonged downturn. The Trade Desk downgraded by Susquehanna Negative Sentiment: Second-quarter revenue rose only 3% year over year to approximately $715 million, below the roughly $753 million consensus estimate. Adjusted EPS was 34 cents; although estimates vary, several reports characterized profit as below expectations and noted that EPS declined from 41 cents a year earlier. Trade Desk Stock Slumps After Revenue Misses Forecasts Negative Sentiment: Third-quarter revenue guidance of about $650 million was well below Wall Street expectations and implies a potential year-over-year revenue decline—the first such decline forecast since the company’s IPO. The outlook suggests that weak consumer spending, tariffs, oil prices and cautious spending by large brands are affecting advertising budgets. Trade Desk shares plunge on weak revenue, guidance miss Negative Sentiment: Management acknowledged execution gaps and a changing customer environment, while profitability also weakened: adjusted EBITDA fell to approximately $241 million and margins contracted. The rapid restructuring of the C-suite added to investor uncertainty about execution and leadership stability. TTD Q2 Earnings Call Flags Execution Gaps and Cautious Q3 Guide Trade Desk Trading Down 21.9% Shares of NASDAQ TTD opened at $13.80 on Friday. The Trade Desk has a one year low of $12.83 and a one year high of $57.00. The business has a 50-day moving average price of $18.82 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $22.79. The firm has a market capitalization of $6.49 billion, a PE ratio of 16.43, a PEG ratio of 0.85 and a beta of 1.04.

Trade Desk (NASDAQ:TTD – Get Free Report) last released its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, May 7th. The technology company reported $0.08 earnings per share for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $0.32 by ($0.24). The company had revenue of $688.86 million during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $678.87 million. Trade Desk had a net margin of 13.61% and a return on equity of 16.19%. The firm’s quarterly revenue was up 11.8% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the prior year, the company posted $0.33 EPS. Research analysts anticipate that The Trade Desk will post 1.17 EPS for the current year.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades A number of equities research analysts have weighed in on the company. Morgan Stanley set a $26.00 target price on Trade Desk in a research report on Friday, May 8th. Rothschild & Co Redburn assumed coverage on shares of Trade Desk in a report on Thursday, May 28th. They issued a “sell” rating and a $11.00 price target for the company. Piper Sandler restated a “neutral” rating and set a $24.00 price objective on shares of Trade Desk in a research report on Friday, May 8th. William Blair cut shares of Trade Desk from an “outperform” rating to a “market perform” rating in a research note on Friday, May 8th. Finally, BMO Capital Markets downgraded Trade Desk from an “outperform” rating to a “market perform” rating and set a $15.00 price objective for the company. in a research report on Friday. Five equities research analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, twenty-seven have issued a Hold rating and seven have issued a Sell rating to the company. According to MarketBeat.com, the company presently has a consensus rating of “Reduce” and a consensus price target of $20.85.

View Our Latest Stock Report on Trade Desk

Trade Desk Company Profile (Free Report)

The Trade Desk, Inc (NASDAQ: TTD) is a technology company that provides a demand-side platform (DSP) for programmatic digital advertising. Its platform enables advertisers, agencies and other buyers to plan, purchase and measure ad inventory across digital channels, including display, video, mobile, audio, native and connected TV. By centralizing real‑time bidding, audience targeting and inventory access, the company aims to help clients optimize media spend and reach audiences at scale across publishers and ad exchanges.

Founded in 2009 by Jeff Green and Dave Pickles, The Trade Desk grew from a focus on programmatic display into a global ad‑tech provider.

Recommended Stories Five stocks we like better than Trade Desk Datadog’s Drop Says More About Expectations Than Earnings D-Wave’s Quantum Breakthrough Couldn’t Save QBTS From a Sell-Off Cloudflare’s Beat-and-Raise Quarter Puts Its AI Edge Story in Focus Solventum Nears Inflection Point As It Begins to Unlock Value Want to see what other hedge funds are holding TTD? Visit HoldingsChannel.com to get the latest 13F filings and insider trades for The Trade Desk (NASDAQ:TTD – Free Report).

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The Trade Desk (TTD -21.80%) spent the early summer rebuilding its executive team. A new chief financial officer, Nate Olmstead, started July 9. A new chief marketing officer, Sarah Gavin, joined in mid-June. A new chief commercial officer, Kristi Argyilan, took over on July 27, and a new chief business development officer was announced in between.

Four senior hires in about two months.

On Thursday afternoon, that team gave investors its first forecast. The advertising technology company expects third-quarter revenue of at least $650 million. It produced $739 million in the same quarter of 2025 -- a decline of about 12%.

Shares fell 6.8% during Thursday's session, then dropped another 25% or so in after-hours trading. They were near $14 as of this writing -- a 12-month low, and about 85% under the 52-week high of $91.45.

Here's what that first forecast says about the business.

Image source: Getty Images.

The first forecast from a new team Second-quarter revenue rose 3% year over year to $715 million. The Trade Desk had guided in May for at least $750 million, so the quarter came in under the company's own floor.

The adjusted EBITDA forecast is where the step-down gets steep. Management expects non-GAAP (adjusted) earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization (EBITDA) of about $160 million in the third quarter. The company earned $317 million on that measure a year ago, at a 43% margin.

That works out to about 25% of the revenue it expects. In all, the forecast calls for revenue down about 12% year over year and adjusted EBITDA down roughly half.

And the trajectory behind it has been building for a year. Revenue grew 18% year over year in the third quarter of 2025. It grew 12% in the first quarter of 2026, then 3% in the second. The third-quarter forecast turns that deceleration into an outright decline.

The same is true of the adjusted EBITDA margin. It was 43% in the third quarter of last year, 30% in the first quarter of this one, and 34% in the second. The new guidance implies about 25%.

Revenue growth has stepped down in every one of those periods. The margin has been choppier, but the guide puts it 18 points below where it was a year ago, which I'd argue is the more telling line.

CEO Jeff Green told analysts on Thursday's call that revenue growth was "below our expectations and below the standard we hold ourselves to."

He gave two reasons for it.

The first is the economy. Consumer packaged goods and auto companies together generate about 25% of The Trade Desk's business, and Green said both categories have been set back by tariffs and oil prices.

And some of those advertisers have responded by shifting to cheaper ways of buying media that involve less automated decision-making (programmatic guaranteed and fixed-price deals).

The second reason is the company itself. Green said The Trade Desk didn't execute as well as it could have.

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What the stock costs now At about $14 a share, The Trade Desk carries a market capitalization of roughly $6.5 billion. It produced $2.99 billion of revenue and $0.85 in earnings per share over the past 12 months -- about two times sales and about 16 times earnings.

The Trade Desk ended June with about $1.5 billion in cash and short-term investments, or close to a quarter of the market value.

Run the same math on the $160 million of adjusted EBITDA guided for this quarter, annualized, and the stock sits near 10 times that figure. For a platform that was growing 18% a year ago, that is not a demanding valuation.

And it is keeping its customers: retention stayed above 95% in the quarter, as it has for more than a decade.

With that said, a quarter of the business sits in two categories management says are under pressure.

So, is the stock cheap enough here?

I don't think so. The price is low, but it is low against a revenue line the company just guided down 12%, and management hasn't said the pressure behind it has eased. Growth like this can stabilize quickly once advertisers loosen up, and it may. What I'd want first is a quarter where the forecast stops stepping down.

Shares of The Trade Desk (TTD -21.65%) plunged anew on Friday, falling as much as 27.3% to lows not seen since early 2019. As of 10:48 a.m. ET, the stock was still down 19.8%.

The catalyst that sent the adtech specialist swooning was the latest in a growing string of abysmal financial reports.

Image source: The Motley Fool.

Dimming prospects For the second quarter, The Trade Desk generated revenue that grew just 3% year over year to $715 million. The weak growth weighed on the company's profitability as adjusted earnings per share (EPS) slumped 17% to $0.34.

To give the results context, analysts' consensus estimates called for revenue of $753 million and EPS of $0.18.

CEO Jeff Green didn't mince words, noting that, "This quarter did not meet the standard we set for ourselves, but it has reinforced our belief that we are focused on the right opportunities for the future."

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To make matters worse, The Trade Desk issued weak guidance, calling for Q3 revenue of $650 million, far below analysts' expectations of $807 million. In light of the disappointing results, Wall Street rushed to adjust its models, hitting the company with a flurry of downgrades and price target cuts.

The Trade Desk has been beset with challenges since early last year, when the company missed its own guidance for the first time as a public company -- in a streak that spanned 33 quarters. At the time, management cited a series of execution missteps for the miss, but since then, things have gone from bad to worse.

The company's recent high-profile dispute with Publicis Group didn't help matters, as the ad agency advised clients to stop spending on The Trade Desk's platform. The spat was resolved in early June, but not before the damage was done.

At 16 times earnings, The Trade Desk stock is at its lowest valuation ever. However, only time will tell whether this is a screaming bargain or a falling knife, so investors should exercise care.

Standard Uranium Ltd (TSX-V:STND, OTCQB:STTDF, FRA:9SU0) has reached an agreement with a Southeast Asian conglomerate to make a strategic investment in the uranium exploration company through a C$3 million non-brokered private placement.

Under the agreement, the investor will acquire 39,215,686 units at C$0.0765 per unit, representing approximately 19.7% of Standard Uranium's current outstanding shares on a non-diluted basis.

Each unit will consist of one common share and one-half of one share purchase warrant. Each whole warrant will allow the investor to purchase an additional share at C$0.115 for 36 months following the closing of the offering, subject to accelerated expiry provisions.

The company said the investor is an established entity with interests and expertise in the global energy sector, although it did not identify the investor by name.

Standard Uranium and the investor also anticipate entering into an investor rights agreement. Under the proposed agreement, the investor would have the right to participate in future financings on a pro rata basis and nominate one director to Standard Uranium's board, provided it maintains ownership of at least 10% of the company's outstanding shares.

The company said it plans to use the net proceeds from the financing for ongoing exploration at its flagship Davidson River Project, as well as working capital and general corporate purposes.

RBC Capital Markets has started its coverage of Pan African Resources PLC (LSE:PAF, OTCQX:PAFRY, JSE:PAN) with an Outperform rating and a 155p price target that implies upside of 55%.

The broker expects production to rise about 30% to 350,000 ounces annually by FY30, led by Tennant Creek in Australia, which it sees reaching around 100,000 ounces. EBITDA is forecast to climb to $1.2 billion by FY29.

London-based analysts for the Canadian bank, in a note, highlighted that Pan African has been transformed into a diversified mid-cap producer with a path to 350,000 ounces of annual production by FY30, while EBITDA is forecast to rise to around $1.2 billion by FY29.

Australia is central to that growth story. RBC expects Tennant Creek to ramp from roughly 34,000 ounces currently to around 100,000 ounces annually by FY29/30, ultimately contributing about 27% of group production and EBITDA.

RBC forecasts roughly $0.8 billion of ordinary dividends over FY26-30, with scope for additional returns as cash builds.

Despite that growth, Pan African trades at 0.7 times NAV and 3.2 times 2026-27 EV/EBITDA, below peer valuations.

“Current share price implies exposure to a solid South African gold business with a free option on Australia growth,” RBC said.

The Trade Desk flags execution gaps and macro pressure after Q2 revenues rose 3%, while its Q3 guide assumes no meaningful improvement.

MF3d/iStock via Getty Images

Download this episode on Apple Podcasts/Spotify or listen below:

Trade Desk top and bottom lines fall short. (0:15) Trump imposes new tariffs on polysilicon. (0:55) OpenAI plans an AI-first smart device designed with former Apple designer Jony Ive. (1:33)

The following is an abridged transcript:

The Trade Desk (TTD) is down by nearly a third in premarket trading after a Q2 earnings miss and signs of slowing momentum at the digital advertising platform.

Revenue rose 3% year over year to $715M, below the $751.4M consensus estimate. Adjusted EPS came in at $0.34, missing expectations of $0.40.

Profitability also weakened, with net income and EBITDA declining and margin contracting to 34% from 39%.

CEO Jeff Green said the results "did not meet the standard we set for ourselves," citing a complex environment for marketers while adding the company is taking steps to improve execution and invest in areas such as AI and measurement.

President Donald Trump issued an order imposing a series of price floors and a 15% tariff on products made from polysilicon, the key material used in semiconductors and solar panels, in a move aimed at protecting domestic manufacturers from Chinese competition.

Beginning Dec. 4, imported polysilicon derivatives, including silicon wafers, photovoltaic cells and solar modules, will be subject to the tariffs and minimum import prices.

The administration said the move is intended to encourage domestic polysilicon production. But the higher import costs could add another headwind for renewable energy developers already dealing with the loss of federal subsidies and the administration's preference for fossil fuels.

And get ready for jokes like: "That's no coaster... that's my AI."

OpenAI's (OPENAI) first dedicated device, essentially a smart speaker without a display but with moving parts, is in the works, according to Bloomberg.

The doughnut-shaped device will be roughly the size of a hockey puck and is expected to cost more than $300.

Slated for release in 2027, it will be positioned as an AI-first computer for everyday tasks. It will operate much like ChatGPT's voice mode, but with more advanced models designed for increasingly natural conversations.

OpenAI expects users to rely on the device throughout the day. It is designed to learn more about its owner over time and tailor conversations accordingly.

The device will include moving components that signal when it's responding, along with lights indicating when it's listening. It will also feature speaker grilles, microphones, a camera system and other sensors that feed visual information into the AI.

The product is being designed in collaboration with Jony Ive's LoveFrom studio. Ive led the design of the iPhone, iPad, iPod and Apple Watch during his time at Apple (AAPL).

Now here's what's trending on Seeking Alpha:

SK hynix (SKHY) is investing $38B to expand its chip manufacturing capacity in South Korea.

Greenlight Capital's David Einhorn says the SpaceX (SPCX) IPO may signal a speculative market peak.

And bitcoin (BTC-USD) options traders have all but stopped betting on a massive price surge.

In premarket trading

Both stocks and bonds are little changed ahead of the July jobs report, due at 8:30 a.m. ET.

Nasdaq futures (US100:IND) are edging higher, leading gains in S&P 500 (SPX) and Dow (INDU) futures. Treasury yields are slightly lower.

Economists expect nonfarm payrolls to have risen by about 90K in July, while the unemployment rate is forecast to remain at 4.2%.