Prediction: Here’s Where The Trade Desk Stock Will Be in 2029
Shares of ad tech company The Trade Desk (NASDAQ:TTD) trade near $12 as I write, down about 91% from their December 2024 record closing price of $139.51. And shares have kept sliding this year, down about 68% since the end of 2025.
The company’s now worth about $5.8 billion, and the stock costs about 14 times its earnings for the last 12 months. For a business whose revenue rose 18% year over year in 2025, that looks cheap. But management now expects revenue to shrink.
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Where could the stock realistically be in a bit over three years?
My estimate is around $16 a share by the end of 2029, about 31% above today’s price, or a gain of about 9% a year. I think it’s a fair middle case. But it hinges on something the company hasn’t forecast yet: a return to growth.
Image source: Getty Images.
Shrinking sales, fewer shares
The Trade Desk is a tech company that runs a demand-side platform (software advertisers use to buy digital ads automatically), and as recently as last year the business looked healthy. Full-year 2025 revenue hit around $2.9 billion, and net income climbed about 13% to $443 million — a net margin of about 15%.
Growth has since slowed sharply. Second-quarter 2026 revenue rose just 3% year over year to $715 million. Net income dropped around 29% to $64 million, cutting the net margin to 9% from 13% in the year-ago quarter. And management’s guidance calls for third-quarter revenue of at least $650 million, which would be a decline of about 12% from the same period in 2025.
Still, one number keeps moving in shareholders’ favor. Mainly because of buybacks, the company’s diluted share count dropped from around 507 million in late 2024 to 483 million a year later, then to 470 million by this year’s second quarter. The Trade Desk repurchased about 10 million shares for about $233 million in the first half of 2026 alone, and it still had about $1.5 billion in cash and short-term investments and no debt at the end of June.
So per-share earnings can arguably rise faster than profits, even if the business recovers slowly.
What would it take to hit $16?
Say revenue rebounds to 2025’s level of about $2.9 billion by 2027 and then rises about 6% a year. This gets The Trade Desk to about $3.3 billion of revenue in 2029, growth at about a third of the rate it managed in 2025.
If the net margin also returns to the 15% the business had in 2025, net income could be near $490 million in 2029.
Assume buybacks cut the diluted share count to about 450 million, a slower rate of decline than the past 18 months. That works out to about $1.09 of earnings per share.
At 15 times earnings (near the price-to-earnings ratio the stock trades at now), shares would be worth around $16.
Notably, I’m not assuming a higher valuation multiple, just that the company stops shrinking and earns its 2025 net margin again.
A lot could go wrong
The biggest risk is that revenue doesn’t rebound on that schedule. If sales settle around $2.8 billion and the net margin stalls at about 10%, earnings per share could be about $0.61 on 460 million shares. At 12 times earnings, the stock would be worth around $7, or about 40% below its current price.
The share count assumption has its own risk. On Monday, Oct. 19, shareholders vote on a proposal to reprice stock options for up to around 15.6 million shares, or about 3% of the outstanding shares. Exercise prices for these options go up to $122.59, and if the proposal passes, any above that day’s closing price would be cut to the close. Options priced near the stock might increase dilution if shares recover, which is the scenario my forecast assumes.
In the end, a gain of around 9% a year would be a decent result from here. But it hinges on a recovery The Trade Desk hasn’t guided to, and my bear case drops more than my base case climbs. This prediction doesn’t change the take I spelled out last month, when I explained why I’m still not buying the stock.
Until management’s revenue forecast points up again, I’d rather not pay even 14 times earnings for the shares. Sure, three years is a long time, and my estimate could miss in either direction.
Should you buy stock in The Trade Desk right now?
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Daniel Sparks and his clients do not have positions in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends The Trade Desk. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
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