Retail traders await commentary from CEO Jeff Green, who said he would explain the rationale behind his purchase of $148 million Trade Desk stock on Friday.
- The Trade Desk shares rose 18.4% on Thursday and gained further in overnight trading.
- Thursday’s rally was also supported by reports detailing the company’s talks to bring OpenAI as a customer.
- TTD saw a surge in chatter on Stocktwits, with a more than 700% rise in message volume, and several traders added the stock to their watchlists over the last 24 hours.
The Trade Desk continued to generate strong interest among retail investors and analysts after the stock rose 18.4%, its best in 10 months, following a massive record purchase of the company's shares by CEO Jeff Green and reports that the company could be nearing an ad tech deal with OpenAI.
Investors were anticipating commentary from Green, who posted on LinkedIn on Thursday, “Tomorrow, I'll explain why.” Green, who is also the founder of the company, said the $148 million transaction was “the biggest purchase of my life.”
Record Insider Buy
Green purchase is the largest insider stock purchase at the ad-tech company in its history, according to insider trading tracker Secform 4, and one of the biggest for a firm of its size — a strong vote of confidence for investors. He also received restricted stock (nearly 300,000) and stock options (about 737,000) as compensation.
TTD’s Thursday rally was also supported by a recent report in The Information, which detailed early discussions about bringing OpenAI on as a customer as part of the AI company’s plan to push into ads.
Analysts’ React To TTD
In an investor note, Evercore ISI analysts said the deal would bring more revenue, while also discussing a broader demand for generative AI-based ad tools such as those offered by The Trade Desk. They believe OpenAI’s ad system could complement Trade Desk’s strengths in pricing and ad inventory, though any deeper partnership would depend on issues such as data availability and privacy.
Evercore kept an ‘Outperform’ rating on TTD, with a $35 price target. Also on Thursday, Huber Research double-upgraded the stock to ‘Overweight’ from ‘Underweight,’ and assigned a $40 price target.’
However, analysts broadly had a mixed view. Currently, 19 of 38 analysts covering the stock recommend ‘Buy’ or higher, 15 recommend ‘Hold,’ and four recommend ‘Sell’ or lower, according to Koyfin data. Their average price target of $31.89 implies a 7% upside to the stock’s last close.
Retail Stays Bullish On TTD
On Stocktwits, retail sentiment Trade Desk is keeping steady in the ‘extremely bullish’ zone, unchanged since last weekend. Message volume for the ticker rose 721%, and watchers increased 1.4% in the past 24 hours.
“$TTD this is a multiday runner. Don't be surprised to see more insider buys,” said a user, while several predicted that shares could go up to $50.
“$TTD Doubled my position here today. Not the bottom of the day but pretty close,” a user said.
Stocktwits’ Tom Bruni broke down the news and retail sentiment in an explainer video here. Despite Thursday’s gains, Trade Desk shares are still down by about 21% year to date.
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