The Trade Desk beats with $736 million but guides the holiday quarter 11% below last year's $846.8 million

The Trade Desk▲+3.01% — The Trade Desk, up 3.01 percent today, the ad-buying platform of the open internet, walked into Monday night with Wall Street parked where management had left it in August: at least $650 million of third-quarter revenue, the floor of its first guided revenue decline↗ ¹²⁴. The print was $736 million, 13% above the $650.7 million consensus ²⁴, with adjusted earnings of $0.33 a share against the $0.25 the Street expected ¹⁴.

The stock had already jumped more than 15% on Monday on the return of co-founder and former chief technology officer Dave Pickles ⁵. After the print it spiked as much as 26% after hours, then pared most of the gain and traded about 4% higher at the time of writing ¹. It remains down 61% in a year analysts framed as lost ¹³.

Flat underneath, with three points borrowed

Beneath the beat, the quarter was flat. Revenue slipped 0.5% year over year, net income fell to $38 million from $116 million, and adjusted EBITDA margin dropped to 36% from 43% ⁶. Roughly three percentage points of revenue came from a strategic partner and will not recur, and political advertising ran at a mid-single-digit share in the company's biggest election cycle yet ⁷.

Strip those three points and revenue is still about $714 million, and the finance chief said even without them the quarter came in meaningfully better than the company anticipated↗ ⁷. August had called for $160 million of adjusted EBITDA; the quarter delivered $266 million ⁵⁶.

The fourth-quarter guide shrinks the biggest quarter

For the fourth quarter, the three months ending in December, management guided to at least $755 million of revenue and $280 million of adjusted EBITDA↗, above Street estimates of $692 million and $197 million ¹⁶. Against last year's holiday quarter of $846.8 million, that is a decline of about 11%, with EBITDA down about 30% ⁵⁸.

Chief Financial Officer Nate Olmstead said the company is "not expecting the normal seasonal uplift Q3 to Q4 that we've seen in the past," citing some large global advertisers still under external pressure ⁷. In each of the last two years the fourth quarter stepped up 14 to 18% from the third; this guide assumes 2.6% ⁸.

Retention and a $1 billion buyback hold the bull case until February

Co-founder and Chief Executive Jeff Green still says the company is "operating below the level of growth we expect from ourselves" ⁶. The bull ledger filled in anyway: retention above 95%, as it has been for over a decade ⁶, a buyback authorization raised by $731 million to $1 billion ⁶, and more than $100 million of gross savings promised for 2027 from September's cut of about 15% of staff↗ ¹⁷.

Clearing $755 million is now the whole test

Two dates decide it: Open Measurement, the new product that assigns credit across the customer journey instead of by last click, launches later this quarter, and February brings the 2027 operating plan ⁷. Election-year first quarters have historically dropped about 25% from the fourth ⁷. If the fourth quarter clears $755 million, a bar that contains none of the partner benefit, August's floor understated the business; if it needs help getting there, the after-hours pop has handed long-suffering holders their exit ⁷.