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Trade Desk (NASDAQ: TTD) reports after the bell tonight, and there is really only one metric that matters. Not EPS. Not EBITDA margin. But revenue growth rate. That single figure will tell investors whether the brutal 67% collapse in TTD shares over the past year was a rational repricing of a slowing business or a panic-driven overreaction to fears that haven’t materialized.
Investors have been watching TTD closely. You can find the full TTD ticker page and ongoing coverage right here on 247 Wall St.
The Number That Broke the Stock
The Trade Desk has been one of the most punishing holds in tech over the past 12 months. The stock is sitting around $25.14 this morning, down more than 33% just the first trading day of the year. The sell-off accelerated in February after AI disruption fears hit the ad-tech sector, a CFO departure rattled confidence, and broader tariff uncertainty weighed on the whole market.
But here’s the thing: The business itself hasn’t cracked.
Q3 2025 revenue came in at $739 million, growing 18% year over year and beating estimates by nearly $20 million. Customer retention held above 95%. The Kokai platform, TTD’s AI-powered advertising engine, was being used as the default experience by nearly 85% of clients and delivering 26% better cost per acquisition and 58% better cost per unique reach compared to the previous platform. That’s not a broken business. That’s a business whose stock got ahead of itself and is now being punished harder than the fundamentals justify.
What Tonight Has to Prove
The company guided for at least $840 million in Q4 revenue with adjusted EBITDA of approximately $375 million. In January, management reaffirmed that guidance, saying it anticipated Q4 and full-year 2025 revenues and adjusted EBITDA to meet previously issued guidance. So the floor is set.
But meeting guidance isn’t enough to stop the bleeding. Investors need to see the growth rate hold. At $840 million, TTD would be printing roughly 17% to 18% year-over-year growth, consistent with Q3. That’s the baseline. Anything below that range reopens the debate about whether this company is entering a structural deceleration. Anything above it, especially if forward commentary sounds confident, gives the bulls their footing back.
The prediction market agrees the odds favor a beat. Polymarket is pricing a 77% probability that TTD reports non-GAAP EPS above the 58-cent consensus estimate tonight. That’s meaningful crowd conviction. And institutional investors have been quietly buying, with Bank of New York Mellon increasing its stake by roughly 41% and Principal Financial Group growing its position by over 325% in Q3. Smart money is leaning in while retail is leaning out.
The Signal That Changes Everything
The real question tonight isn’t whether TTD beats a number. It’s whether CEO Jeff Green sounds like a man who sees the road ahead clearly. In Q3, he was unambiguous. “I’ve never been more excited about the road ahead. The upgrades we’ve made to our company over the past year put us in the best possible position to execute on the opportunities that are right in front of us today and continue to scale and lead the open Internet in the years ahead,” Green said during the company’s Q3 2025 earnings call.
If that tone holds tonight, and if the revenue growth rate stays in the high teens, the bear case loses its most important argument. The stock has been priced like a company losing ground. Tonight is TTD’s chance to show that the ground is still solid.
The Trade Desk has spent the last year being punished for fears about AI disruption, leadership changes, and macro uncertainty. The business has largely held up. Tonight, one number gets to answer the question the market has been asking for twelve months: was this a crisis, or just a correction? Watch the growth rate. Everything else follows from there.
