Over the past decade, the S&P 500 has rallied by more than 260%, despite the pandemic, inflation, geopolitical conflicts, rising interest rates, and other macroeconomic headwinds that have rattled the markets. Investors who sat still, tuned out the near-term noise, and bought some high-quality stocks fared better than the myopic traders who tried to time their trades around those volatile events.
Therefore, investors who plan to hold their stocks for at least another decade shouldn't lose too much sleep over the market's news-driven volatility over the past year. Instead, they should still accumulate some high-growth tech stocks, which could generate significant long-term gains. These two stocks check the right boxes: The Trade Desk (TTD 1.05%) and Reddit (RDDT 0.22%).
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The Trade Desk
The Trade Desk operates the largest independent demand-side platform (DSP) for digital ads. DSPs sell advertising space for programmatic (automated) ads across desktop, mobile, and connected TV (CTV) platforms to advertisers. They're on the opposite side of the ad supply chain from sell-side platforms (SSPs), which help publishers sell their own ad inventories.
NASDAQ: TTD
Key Data Points
Big tech companies like Meta and Alphabet's (GOOG +1.09%) (GOOGL +1.00%) Google bundle together DSPs, SSPs, and other adtech tools, but they also lock those advertisers into their own "walled gardens". To break out of those walls and reach the broader "open internet" of apps and websites, advertisers often turn to independent DSPs like The Trade Desk.
Over the past few years, the rapid growth of the ad-supported streaming video market has offset the slower growth of its mobile and desktop platforms. It has also been increasing the stickiness of its ecosystem with Solimar, its unified platform for analyzing data; its Ventura smart TV OS, which hosts its own ads; and its Unified ID 2.0 (UID2) solution, which replaces traditional cookies. Its next-gen Kokai platform, which it started rolling out in 2023, weaves its proprietary AI algorithm, Koa, across all of its planning, bidding, campaign optimization, and ad measurement tools.
For 2025, analysts expect the company's revenue and adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization (EBITDA) to grow by 18% and 16%, respectively. For 2026, they expect its revenue and adjusted EBITDA to both rise 16%. The company expects its new AI features, the expansion of the CTV market, and its international expansion to drive that growth.
With an enterprise value of $16.4 billion, The Trade Desk still looks reasonably valued at 12 times this year's adjusted EBITDA. It could still have plenty of room to grow as the digital advertising market expands, evolves, and attracts more advertisers to the open internet.
Reddit is often considered a social media network, but it's more of an open discussion forum that aggregates news stories and other trending topics. That unique structure supplies Reddit with a wealth of data for crafting targeted ads, and turns it into a top source for finding human-generated responses through search engines and generative AI chatbots.
NYSE: RDDT
Key Data Points
Reddit hosted 116 million daily active unique (DAUq) visits and 50.2 million logged-in DAUq visitors at the end of the third quarter of 2025. That's a big jump from its 101.7 million DAUq visitors and 46.1 million logged-in DAUq visitors at the end of 2024.
The U.S. elections, geopolitical conflicts, major movie releases, meme stock trading, and other trends drove much of that growth. Its data-sharing partnerships with Google's Gemini and OpenAI's ChatGPT ushered even more users to its platform. To diversify its top line away from ads, it's expanding its Reddit Premium tier -- which offers ad-free browsing and additional perks.
For 2025, analysts expect Reddit's revenue and adjusted EBITDA to grow 65% and 169%, respectively. For 2026, they expect its revenue and adjusted EBITDA to rise 39% and 57%, respectively. Its new AI features (including Reddit Answers and AI-assisted searches), more sophisticated ad products, and overseas expansion are expected to fuel that growth.
With an enterprise value of $44.1 billion, Reddit might not seem like a bargain at 34 times this year's adjusted EBITDA. However, its robust growth rates, dominance of its discussion-powered niche, and expanding ecosystem all justify that higher valuation. It could grow much larger over the next decade as the social media, social news, and online search markets converge.
