The Trade Desk Surges 22% After Q3 Revenue of $736M Crushes Estimates by $86M

The Trade Desk reported third-quarter 2026 results after Monday's closing bell that far exceeded Wall Street expectations, sending shares up roughly 21.8 percent in after-hours trading after the stock had already climbed as much as 16 percent during the regular session. Revenue came in at $736 million against a consensus estimate of $650 million, a beat of approximately $86 million, though that figure was down 0.5 percent year over year. Adjusted EPS of $0.33 beat the $0.25 estimate by $0.08, while adjusted EBITDA of $266 million dwarfed the $161 million forecast. Customer retention remained above 95 percent, and the company took $44.3 million in restructuring charges that were excluded from non-GAAP figures.

For the fourth quarter, The Trade Desk guided revenue to at least $755 million, well above the $685 million consensus, and adjusted EBITDA to at least $280 million versus expectations of $191 million. The company also announced an additional $731 million buyback authorization, bringing the total repurchase program to $1 billion, with approximately $269 million currently available. CEO Jeff Green said results came in well ahead of the company's own internal expectations but cautioned that the business is still operating below its own growth targets.

A separate disclosure revealed that Green had been granted options on 7 million shares in the weeks before the report. The pre-earnings rally was also fueled in part by the return of the company's co-founder and chief technology officer, which investors took as a positive signal for the platform's longer-term trajectory. Adding to the momentum, The Trade Desk announced that Netflix is expanding its advertising partnership beginning in November, allowing advertisers to target Netflix audiences through the company's Kokai platform using first-party and third-party data, with in-platform measurement tools expected to follow. Netflix had previously joined Trade Desk's Sellers and Publishers 500-plus network, giving advertisers automatic access to its streaming inventory within Kokai.

Despite the strong print, analysts had warned before the report that a single quarter would not rescue what Barron's described as a "lost year" for the stock, which entered Monday's session at deeply depressed levels. Options activity was notably heavy, with 175,893 contracts traded on TTD representing roughly 17.6 million underlying shares.