$10,000 in The Trade Desk on Its First Trading Day Is Still Worth About $40,000. Can the Stock Recover Again?

On its initial day of trading on September 21, 2016, The Trade Desk's shares opened at $30.10, or approximately $3.01 per share after accounting for a 10-for-1 stock split in 2021. A $10,000 investment would have bought around 3,322 shares at that price. By October 16, 2016, these shares were valued at around $40,600, yielding a gain of about four times the initial investment, though the stock traded at roughly 91% below its December 2024 peak of $139.51, which would have resulted in a value of approximately $463,000 at that time.

Despite this significant dip, The Trade Desk has managed to grow revenue per share to a level higher than it was during its peak. The company's software, which enables brands and ad agencies to place digital ad bids automatically, has driven revenue growth, with annual increases of around 36% on average. Revenue grew from $203 million in 2016 to $2.4 billion in 2024, while profits were generated in every year during this period.

Notably, the stock lost around half of its value in 2022, but revenue still grew by about 32% year-over-year to $1.6 billion. However, the stock's valuation surged to almost 230 times earnings in 2022, which may have been unsustainable in the long term. The recent decline began with a miss on the company's quarterly revenue forecast in February 2025, followed by a 39% drop in a single session in August 2025.

The company's CFO also left the organization, and revenue growth slowed significantly. In 2025, revenue increased by only 18% year-over-year, and by just 3% in 2026. In 2026, management projected revenue of at least $650 million, which is around 12% lower than the previous year. The stock has since fallen out of the S&P 500 index, having joined in July 2025.

Despite these setbacks, earnings per share have remained strong, with a $0.84 earnings figure for the first four quarters of 2026 compared to $0.61 at the peak. The stock is now trading at less than 15 times earnings, down from almost 230 times in 2022. The overall return on a $10,000 investment has been around 15% over ten years, but a comparable investment in the SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust (SPY) would have yielded nearly identical results.

The main takeaway for first-day investors is that the low entry price allowed them to withstand the significant stock decline and still see substantial gains. However, with revenue growth seemingly stalled, future performance will depend on whether The Trade Desk can return to its past growth trajectory.