Momentum keeps building for one of this year's biggest winners. Shares of The Trade Desk (TTD 4.15%) moved 13.3% higher last week, following a 53% surge a week earlier after putting up better-than-expected financial results. The Trade Desk stock has now moved 73% higher over the past two weeks, soaring 81% year to date.
The Trade Desk has now hit all-time highs in six of the past seven trading days. It hit its latest high-water mark on Monday of this week, before retreating to close lower on the day. The Trade Desk wasn't going to go up every week.
Image source: The Trade Desk.
Method to the marketing madness
The Trade Desk is revolutionizing the ad industry. Leaning on tech to better allocate marketing spend across all media makes perfect sense in this era of big data. The Trade Desk isn't the only player in this high-tech space, but it's rapidly emerging as the market darling.
The financial report earlier this month was a beauty. Revenue soared 61% and profitability nearly doubled. Grinding an old-school marketing model through an algorithmic wringer is resulting in more effective campaigns. Everybody wins, especially the shareholders. The Trade Desk stock has more than quadrupled since going public at $18 less than two years ago.
Several analysts have gone on to jack up their price targets following the blowout quarterly performance. Wall Street was holding out for an actual decline in adjusted earnings and much slower top-line growth. The rub at this point is that the stock has gone on to barrel through all of the raised price goals. The four analysts had bumped their price targets to between $75 and $80, but the stock has been closing north of $80 for more than a week now. It remains to be seen if any of the four analysts will downgrade the stock on valuation concerns -- all four were bullish -- or if they will update their notes to lift their goals for the share price even higher.
The Trade Desk did bump its guidance higher following its monster quarter two weeks ago. It now sees revenue of $433 million for all of 2018. It also initiated its guidance for the current quarter, calling for top-line results of $103 million. This won't be the first time that The Trade Desk's revenue clocks in with nine figures. The Trade Desk achieved that milestone during the seasonally potent holiday-containing quarter last year. Between the ascending stock's momentum and The Trade Desk's tendency to offer up conservative guidance the prognosis is strong for the shares even if they've outpaced Wall Street's near-term expectations.
