Trade Desk (TTD) Is Down 6.9% After Rising Big-Tech Ad Rivalry Spurs Fresh Competitive Questions

• In recent days, The Trade Desk has come under pressure as investors reassessed its position amid intensifying competition from large digital advertising platforms and concerns about how industry changes may affect its long-term growth profile.
• Despite resilient fundamentals such as high customer retention and ongoing AI and connected TV initiatives, insider share sales and analyst caution have raised fresh questions about how durable its competitive advantages may be.
• We’ll now examine how these competition-driven concerns, particularly around big-tech ad ecosystems, affect The Trade Desk’s existing investment narrative.

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Trade Desk Investment Narrative Recap

To own The Trade Desk, you need to believe that independent, data driven ad buying on the open internet and connected TV can keep attracting budgets despite powerful walled gardens. The recent selloff, analyst downgrades and insider selling sharpen the focus on one key near term catalyst, sustained CTV and AI driven revenue growth, and one dominant risk, that big tech ecosystems capture a larger share of ad spend. So far, the core business momentum reported has not been materially disrupted.

Against this backdrop, the company’s recent Q3 2025 update, with revenue up 18% year over year and customer retention above 95%, is especially relevant. It shows that while competition is intensifying and valuation expectations have reset, Trade Desk’s connected TV partnerships, Kokai AI enhancements and new data marketplaces are still feeding into the very growth engine that many investors are questioning.

Yet behind this strength, the growing pull of closed ad ecosystems is a risk investors should be aware of, because it could...

Read the full narrative on Trade Desk (it's free!)

Trade Desk's narrative projects $4.3 billion revenue and $823.2 million earnings by 2028. This requires 17.1% yearly revenue growth and about a $406 million earnings increase from $417.2 million today.

Uncover how Trade Desk's forecasts yield a $62.33 fair value, a 70% upside to its current price.

Exploring Other Perspectives

Thirty eight members of the Simply Wall St Community currently see Trade Desk’s fair value anywhere between about US$39 and US$111 per share, underlining how far opinions can stretch. Against this wide spread of views, the rising competitive pressure from big tech ad platforms could be a key swing factor for the company’s future performance, so it is worth comparing several of these perspectives before taking a stance.

Explore 38 other fair value estimates on Trade Desk - why the stock might be worth over 3x more than the current price!

Build Your Own Trade Desk Narrative

Disagree with existing narratives? Create your own in under 3 minutes - extraordinary investment returns rarely come from following the herd.

• A great starting point for your Trade Desk research is our analysis highlighting 3 key rewards that could impact your investment decision.
• Our free Trade Desk research report provides a comprehensive fundamental analysis summarized in a single visual - the Snowflake - making it easy to evaluate Trade Desk's overall financial health at a glance.

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This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. We provide commentary based on historical data and analyst forecasts only using an unbiased methodology and our articles are not intended to be financial advice. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. We aim to bring you long-term focused analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material. Simply Wall St has no position in any stocks mentioned.

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