The Trade Desk Trades Above Wall Street’s Average Target. Here’s What the Cost Cuts Change
The Trade Desk (TTD) has reached the point in a decline where the average analyst target no longer sits ahead of the price. On September 18, Guggenheim raised its target to $13 from $12 and kept a Neutral rating. The stock closed that day at $13.92. What makes the raise revealing is its reason: Guggenheim lifted the number on the company's recent layoffs, raising its 2027 EBITDA estimate by about 23% on roughly $150 million of expected annualized savings. The most constructive analyst action in weeks was a bet on cost discipline, and even that could not lift the target above the market price.
The mean Street target now sits near $13.60, just under the current price, per TIKR data. A year ago, that same panel carried a mean above $70. The question is whether a company still generating cash and gaining share deserves to trade with the median forecast underwater.
The collapse in expectations has been methodical. TIKR's Street target history shows the mean falling from about $86 in mid-2025 to $70, then $62, then $31 by March, and to $13.60 now. Each cut followed the price down rather than leading it. A year ago, the panel leaned heavily Buy; today it holds 4 Buys, 1 Outperform, 23 Holds, 3 Underperforms, and 5 Sells, with individual targets spanning $9 to $21. The Street has not turned violently bearish so much as surrendered its conviction.
What separates this quarter from the prior down-legs is that the company is now shrinking itself to fit. On September 3, it announced a cut of roughly 15% of staff (about 575 roles), with $39 to $51 million in charges landing in Q3. A day later, S&P Dow Jones Indices confirmed TTD would leave the S&P 500 at the September 21 rebalance, dropping two tiers into the SmallCap 600 barely a year after joining. The index move changes no revenue, but the layoffs are the number the constructive analyst case now rests on.
New CFO Nate Olmstead, who joined in July from Penguin Solutions, framed the philosophy plainly on the call: invest "with conviction in areas where we see attractive returns" and be "equally disciplined everywhere else." The indicators he inherited are healthier than the revenue line suggests, with revenue under Joint Business Plans still compounding at six times the overall company rate and connected TV and audio both growing double digits. The bet embedded in the $13 target is that this discipline protects margin while the growth team stabilizes the top line.
TTD trades near 8.8x forward EV/EBITDA , against DoubleVerify at about 7.0x and Magnite at 12.4x, yet neither smaller peer carries TTD's 77% gross margin or its net-cash balance sheet. The premium the market once paid for the category's clear quality leader has almost entirely gone, which is what makes the level worth a look rather than a reflexive pass.
TIKR's mid-case scenario, realized at the end of 2030, values the stock near $23, a total return of around 65%, and an IRR of roughly 12% a year off today's price. It does not need a return to hypergrowth. The two revenue drivers are continued CTV and audio expansion, where audio is already the fastest-growing channel, and the Joint Business Plan flywheel, where revenue under those long-term brand commitments grows several times faster than the company overall. The margin driver is the multi-year shift of workloads from public cloud to owned data centers, a 2026 cost headwind management frames as later operating leverage, now reinforced by the layoffs. The primary risk is that CPG and auto weakness proves structural rather than cyclical, which would pull the whole growth case lower.
The honest tension: the model's low case sits near $19 with a 4% IRR, roughly where the stock trades now, so the market is pricing something between the bearish and middling outcomes. The upside is that a stabilizing macro plus real cost discipline restores mid-single-digit growth and a re-rating toward the mid case. The downside is that the guided decline extends into 2027, and the multiple compression that has defined two years has further to run.
The next real test is the third-quarter report, due November 5. Management guided revenue to at least $650 million, so the printed number against that bar is the first read: a beat that narrows the implied decline points to cyclical pressure, while a number at or below the guide confirms the Street's surrender. Watch adjusted EBITDA as closely as revenue, because Q3 is the first quarter to show whether the layoffs protect margin while the top line contracts, and watch the fourth-quarter guide just as hard. Until then, TTD sits in the rare spot of trading above the average target of the analysts who cover it, with a model that suggests the last two years overshot.
The only way to really know is to look at the numbers yourself. TIKR gives you free access to the same institutional-quality financial data that professional analysts use to answer exactly that question.
Pull up The Trade Desk , and you'll see years of historical financials, what Wall Street analysts expect for revenue and earnings in the quarters ahead, how valuation multiples have moved over time, and whether price targets are trending up or down.
You can build a free watchlist to track The Trade Desk alongside every other stock on your radar. No credit card required. Just the data you need to decide for yourself.
