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TTD, The Trade Desk Inc.

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Latest annual: FY2025 10-K

TTD · The Trade Desk Inc.

The business

What it sells, where the money comes from, the kind of company it is.

Revenue · FY2025

$2.9B

+18.5% YoY · 28% 5-yr CAGR

Vital signs · TTM, with 5-yr average

Revenue $3.0B 5-yr avg $2.0B

Gross margin 78% 5-yr avg 81%

Operating margin 20.3% 5-yr avg 13.2%

ROIC 24% 5-yr avg 15%

Owner-earnings margin 33% 5-yr avg 29%

Free cash flow margin 28% 5-yr avg 28%

The business in brief

read the 10-K →

What this business is and what moves its needle, from its own SEC filings.

What moves the needle: Gross margin has run about 79% and operating margin about 17% through the cycle, a wide spread between price and the cost of what it sells — whether that advantage is durable pricing power or a margin that can erode is the question the record is for. The operating margin has swung widely — from 7.2% to 28% — on a steadier 79% gross margin, so what moves it sits below the gross line, in operating spend and one-off charges more than in the cost of the product itself. Stock-based pay runs about 13% of sales, a real and recurring claim on owners that the GAAP margin understates. Read this kind of business on retention and the cost of growth. On its own account, the filing leans hardest on pricing power & competition, set against the numbers in what the filing emphasizes, below.
Is it a good business?: Return on capital has run high across the record (median 22%, above 15% in 8 of 10 years), though buybacks and expensed R&D and brands shrink the capital base, so the figure overstates the underlying economics. The steadier read is owner earnings: roughly 28% of revenue reaches owners as cash, consistently, and customers and suppliers fund the business through negative working capital. Whether these returns reflect real pricing power or an accounting artifact is the judgment the 10-K is for.

Every line is arithmetic on the company's filings, shown in full in the sections below.

The record

Ten years of arithmetic, read across the cycle.

The record, 2016–2025

realized figures from each filing · older years to the left

2016’16	2017’17	2018’18	2019’19	2020’20	2021’21	2022’22	2023’23	2024’24	2025’25	TTMTTMMar 2026
											Income statement
$203M	$308M	$477M	$661M	$836M	$1.2B	$1.6B	$1.9B	$2.4B	$2.9B	$3.0B	RevenueRevenue
80%	79%	76%	76%	79%	81%	82%	81%	81%	79%	78%	Gross marginGross mgn
16%	19%	18%	22%	21%	31%	33%	27%	22%	18%	17%	SG&A / revenueSG&A/rev
13%	17%	18%	18%	20%	19%	20%	21%	19%	18%	18%	R&D / revenueR&D/rev
$58M	$69M	$107M	$112M	$144M	$125M	$114M	$200M	$427M	$589M	$602M	Operating incomeOp. inc.
28.3%	22.5%	22.5%	17.0%	17.2%	10.4%	7.2%	10.3%	17.5%	20.3%	20.3%	Operating marginOp. mgn
$20M	$51M	$88M	$108M	$242M	$138M	$53M	$179M	$393M	$443M	$433M	Net incomeNet inc.
53%	20%	17%	7%	—	—	58%	33%	23%	33%	35%	Effective tax rateTax rate
											Cash flow & returns
$75M	$31M	$87M	$60M	$405M	$379M	$549M	$598M	$739M	$993M	$1.1B	Operating cash flowOp. cash
$4M	$7M	$12M	$22M	$29M	$42M	$54M	$80M	$87M	$116M	$123M	DepreciationDeprec.
$46M	($48M)	($56M)	($151M)	$22M	($139M)	($58M)	($153M)	($236M)	($57M)	$66M	Working capital & otherWC & other
$7M	$10M	$20M	$36M	$74M	$55M	$84M	$47M	$98M	$197M	$251M	CapexCapex
3.4%	3.3%	4.1%	5.4%	8.9%	4.6%	5.3%	2.4%	4.0%	6.8%	8.4%	Capex / revenueCapex/rev
$71M	$24M	$75M	$39M	$376M	$336M	$494M	$552M	$641M	$877M	$970M	Owner earningsOwner earn.
35.1%	7.8%	15.7%	5.8%	45.0%	28.1%	31.3%	28.3%	26.2%	30.3%	32.7%	Owner earnings marginOE mgn
$68M	$21M	$67M	$25M	$331M	$324M	$465M	$552M	$641M	$796M	$842M	Free cash flowFCF
33.6%	6.9%	14.0%	3.7%	39.6%	27.1%	29.4%	28.3%	26.2%	27.5%	28.4%	Free cash flow marginFCF mgn
—	$3M	—	—	$0	$13M	$0	$0	$0	$4M	$0	AcquisitionsAcquis.
—	—	—	—	—	$0	$0	$647M	$235M	$1.4B	—	BuybacksBuybacks
51%	47%	48%	22%	25%	16%	5%	11%	21%	22%	24%	ROICROIC
12%	21%	22%	18%	24%	9%	3%	8%	13%	18%	18%	Return on equityROE
12%	21%	22%	18%	24%	9%	3%	8%	13%	18%	18%	Retained to equityRetained/eq
											Balance sheet
$133M	$156M	$207M	$255M	$624M	$959M	$1.4B	$1.4B	$1.9B	$1.3B	$1.4B	Cash & investmentsCash+inv
$377M	$600M	$835M	$1.2B	$1.6B	$2.0B	$2.3B	$2.9B	$3.3B	$3.8B	$3.3B	ReceivablesReceiv.
$321M	$490M	$669M	$869M	$1.3B	$1.7B	$1.9B	$2.3B	$2.6B	$3.0B	$2.6B	Accounts payablePayables
$56M	$109M	$166M	$298M	$236M	$365M	$476M	$553M	$699M	$763M	$691M	Operating working capitalOper. WC
$516M	$766M	$1.1B	$1.4B	$2.3B	$3.1B	$3.8B	$4.3B	$5.3B	$5.3B	$4.9B	Current assetsCur. assets
$344M	$519M	$714M	$930M	$1.5B	$1.8B	$2.0B	$2.5B	$2.9B	$3.3B	$2.9B	Current liabilitiesCur. liab.
1.5×	1.5×	1.5×	1.6×	1.6×	1.7×	1.9×	1.7×	1.9×	1.6×	1.7×	Current ratioCurr. ratio
$538M	$797M	$1.1B	$1.7B	$2.8B	$3.6B	$4.4B	$4.9B	$6.1B	$6.2B	$5.7B	Total assetsAssets
$26M	$27M	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	$72M	Total debtDebt
($108M)	($129M)	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	($1.3B)	Net debt / (cash)Net debt
18.7×	38.7×	69.2×	—	—	—	28.3×	121.1×	282.1×	329.2×	336.6×	Interest coverageInt. cov.
$164M	$246M	$395M	$613M	$1.0B	$1.5B	$2.1B	$2.2B	$2.9B	$2.5B	$2.5B	Shareholders’ equityEquity
2.5%	6.9%	8.8%	12.2%	13.4%	28.2%	31.6%	25.3%	20.2%	16.9%	15.9%	Stock comp / revenueSBC/rev
											Per share
183M	441M	458M	478M	490M	499M	500M	500M	502M	494M	477M	Shares out (diluted)Shares
$1.11	$0.70	$1.04	$1.38	$1.71	$2.40	$3.16	$3.89	$4.87	$5.87	$6.23	Revenue / shareRev/sh
$0.11	$0.12	$0.19	$0.23	$0.49	$0.28	$0.11	$0.36	$0.78	$0.90	$0.91	EPS (diluted)EPS
$0.39	$0.05	$0.16	$0.08	$0.77	$0.67	$0.99	$1.10	$1.28	$1.78	$2.03	Owner earnings / shareOE/sh
$0.37	$0.05	$0.15	$0.05	$0.68	$0.65	$0.93	$1.10	$1.28	$1.61	$1.77	Free cash flow / shareFCF/sh
$0.04	$0.02	$0.04	$0.07	$0.15	$0.11	$0.17	$0.09	$0.20	$0.40	$0.53	Cap. spending / shareCapex/sh
$0.90	$0.56	$0.86	$1.28	$2.07	$3.06	$4.23	$4.33	$5.88	$5.03	$5.14	Book value / shareBVPS

The diluted share count moved ×2.41 into 2017 — shares issued, not a split the totals corroborate — and the per-share figures carry the counts as filed.

Share counts before 2019 are restated ×10 for a stock split, so per-share figures sit on one basis.

Per-share growththe realized rate an owner's share compounded

	9-yr	5-yr
Revenue / share	+20.3%/yr	+28.0%/yr
Owner earnings / share	+18.4%/yr	+18.3%/yr
EPS	+26.0%/yr	+12.7%/yr
Capital spending / share	+30.0%/yr	+21.4%/yr
Book value / share	+21.1%/yr	+19.5%/yr

The year, in the company's words

the filing →

Verbatim from the 10-K's management discussion. Each sentence is shown only because its subject, direction, and stated figures check out against the filed numbers on this page. The words are the company's; the arithmetic is the record's.

Revenue+18.5%
“Sales and Marketing Sales and marketing expense increased by $98 million, or 18%, for the year ended December 31, 2025, as compared to the year ended December 31, 2024. The increase was primarily due to increases of $74 million in personnel costs, which included a $13 million increase in stock-based compensation, $17 million in marketing costs and $7 million in allocated facilities costs.”
✓ figure matches the filed record

The record, charted

FY2016–2025

Each measure over its full record; the current point and the worst year marked. Share counts on the current split basis.

Share count

494Mpeak FY2024

ROIC

22%low FY2022

Gross margin

79%low FY2018

Owner earnings vs. net income

Owner earningsNet income

The accountant's number, and the cash an owner can take; the gap is the tell.

$877Mowner earningsvs.$443Mnet incomelow FY2017

Where the cash went

ReinvestBuybacksDividendsAcquisitionsRetainedBeyond op. cash

Each year's outlays against its operating cash: the mix, and how it drifts. The hatched cap is spending beyond that year's operating cash — financed from the balance sheet or borrowing, not operations.

FY2016FY2025

Owner-earnings bridge

FY2021–FY2025cash-flow statement, SEC EDGAR →

Net income is the accountant's number; owner earnings is the cash an owner could take out. The walk between them, off the cash-flow statement, and whether the gap is widening or holding.

In fiscal 2025 the business earned $877M of owner earnings, the operating cash left after the $116M it takes just to hold its position. It put $81M more into growth; free cash flow, after that spending, was $796M.

Reported net income$443M

Owner earnings$877M · 30% of revenue

	FY2025	FY2024	FY2023	FY2022	FY2021
Reported net income	$443M	$393M	$179M	$53M	$138M
Depreciation & amortizationnon-cash charge added back	+$116M	+$87M	+$80M	+$54M	+$42M
Stock-based compensationreal costnon-cash, but a real cost	+$491M	+$495M	+$492M	+$499M	+$337M
Working capital & othertiming of cash in and out, other non-cash items	−$57M	−$236M	−$153M	−$58M	−$139M
Cash from operations	$993M	$739M	$598M	$549M	$379M
Maintenance capital expenditurethe spending needed just to hold position and volume	−$116M	−$98M	−$47M	−$54M	−$42M
Owner earnings	$877M	$641M	$552M	$494M	$336M
Growth capital expenditurediscretionary; spent to get bigger, not to stand still	−$81M	—	—	−$30M	−$13M
Free cash flow	$796M	$641M	$552M	$465M	$324M
Owner-earnings marginowner earnings ÷ revenue	30%	26%	28%	31%	28%

Owner earnings is the cash an owner could pull out without starving the business: operating cash less the maintenance capital it must spend to hold its position (here about $116M, roughly its depreciation, the rate its assets wear out). The other $81M of its capital spending is growth it chose, not upkeep it owed; charged only with the maintenance it must do, the business earns well more than the year's free cash flow shows. The cash-flow statement also adds stock comp back as non-cash, but it is a real cost paid in shares; counted as the expense it is (less $491M), owner earnings is nearer $386M.

Maintenance capex is estimated as depreciation where a growing business invests above it; free cash flow is the figure the scorecard's free-cash margin reads.

III

Quality & stewardship

Returns, the balance sheet, capital allocation, and pay.

Owner’s Scorecard

FY2025 10-K · source on SEC EDGAR →

Will it survive?

Can it pay its interest? 329.2×

Comfortable

Operating income $589M ÷ interest expense $2M

What this means
Operating profit covers interest with the kind of margin Graham wanted for a defensive holding. Necessary, not sufficient, it says solvent, not cheap.
How heavy is the debt, net of cash? +$1.3B

Net cash

Cash $658M + ST investments $645M − debt $27M

What this means
Cash and short-term investments exceed every dollar of debt by $1.3B, on net the company owes nothing, and can act from strength when others can't. Net debt is the leverage figure that matters: the cash is already set against the debt. Strategic or illiquid investments aren't counted here.
How long is cash tied up? -1298d

Negative, funded by others

DSO 475 + DIO 0 − DPO 1773 days

What this means
Days cash is tied up between paying suppliers and collecting from customers. A negative cycle is a quiet moat: suppliers and customers fund the operation (Buffett's “float”), the company grows on other people's money. (Little or no inventory, a services / asset-light model, so the inventory leg is ~0.)

Is it a good business?

Return on invested capital 22%

High through the cycle

10-yr median, range 5%–51%; 21% latest = NOPAT $397M ÷ invested capital $1.9B

Industry peers: median 8%

What this means
The rate the business earns on the money tied up in it, Buffett's north star, because over time a stock tracks the ROIC beneath it. Above ~15% sustained hints at a moat; a return below the cost of capital (~8%) erodes value as a business grows rather than building it — the test Buffett weighs most. The headline is the median of the last 10 years (it ran 21% most recently), so one peak or trough year doesn't set the verdict. Asset-light businesses (R&D expensed, little capital) read artificially high, pair this with Owner Earnings.
Owner-earnings margin 28%

High through the cycle

10-yr median margin, range 6%–45%; latest $877M = operating cash $993M − maintenance capex $116M

Industry peers: median 6%

What this means
What an owner could take out without starving the business: operating cash less the maintenance capital it must spend to hold its position — Buffett's owner earnings. That's 30% of revenue this year, a 28% median across 10 years. Treating stock comp as the real expense it is (less $491M of SBC) leaves $386M.
Are earnings backed by cash? 2.24×

Cash-backed

Cash from ops $993M ÷ net income $443M

What this means
How much of reported profit showed up as operating cash. Above 1× is reassuring; well below suggests earnings lean on accruals. One year is noisy, growth and working-capital swings distort it, and this is operating cash, not free cash. Watch the multi-year trend.

How is the cash used?

Where do the earnings go? 157%

Returned more than it generated

Dividends + buybacks $1.4B ÷ Owner Earnings $877M

What this means
The company returned more than it generated: against $877M of Owner Earnings, $1.4B (157%) went back to shareholders, $0 dividends, $1.4B buybacks — the excess came from the balance sheet or borrowing, not the year's operations. Net of $491M stock comp, the real buyback was about $890M. Sustained, that pattern draws down cash or adds debt; the net-debt line above shows where it stands.
Investing or harvesting? 1.70×

Expanding

Capex $197M ÷ depreciation $116M

What this means
Descriptive, not a grade. Above ~1× means investing faster than assets wear out (growth, or, sustained for years, today's earnings carrying less depreciation than tomorrow's will). Below means spending less than it's wearing out (efficiency, or a melting asset base). The ratio won't tell you which; the filings will.

Graham’s defensive tests · 4 of 6 met

Graham’s numerical criteria for the defensive investor (The Intelligent Investor, ch. 14), run on the filings. A floor of safety, not a buy signal; many fine modern businesses fail his strictest liquidity rules by design.

Adequate size Pass

Revenue ≥ $2B · $2.9B

What this means
Big enough to weather a storm. Graham's 1972 floor was ~$100M of sales (≈ $700M today); we use a $2B revenue line as a conservative modern stand-in.
Strong liquidity Near

Current ratio ≥ 2× · 1.61×

What this means
Current assets at least twice current liabilities, near-term bills covered without touching the business. Strict by design: many cash-rich modern firms run leaner and miss it, holding their cushion in longer-dated securities.
Conservative debt Pass

Debt ≤ working capital · $27M vs $2.0B WC

What this means
Graham's rule that borrowings not exceed net current assets. Capital-heavy and buyback-heavy firms routinely fail it, read it next to interest coverage, not alone.
Earnings stability Pass

A profit every year (10-yr record) · no losses

What this means
Graham wanted earnings in each of the past ten years, the stability a defensive owner leans on.
Dividend record Miss

Uninterrupted dividends · none paid

What this means
An unbroken dividend was Graham's mark of durability. He wanted twenty years; the filings show about ten, and a single suspension breaks the streak. Non-payers, many fine modern compounders, fall outside his defensive net by design.
Earnings growth Pass

Earnings +33% over the record · +537%

What this means
At least a third more earnings than a decade ago, averaging three years at each end. Net income (not per-share), so stock splits don't distort it, buybacks and dilution show up in the share-count line instead.
Moderate price —

P/E ≤ 15 and P/E × P/B ≤ 22.5 · decided by the price

What this means
Graham's valuation gate, the wall he kept between a sound business and a sound investment. Three-year average earnings are $0.71/share (latest year $0.93), the averaged base the calculator's gate runs on, and book value is $5.23/share. Enter a price in “What the price implies” just below for the P/E, P/B, and whether it clears. But this is the rule Buffett outgrew: there's no hard P/E law, and a wonderful business can deserve a far richer multiple if the thesis holds, treat it as the bargain-hunter's floor, not a verdict on the price.

Durability & moat, 2016–2025

Whether the record’s returns held, and what the capital reinvested earned.

Profitable years 10 of 10

What this means
Never lost money over the record, the earnings stability Graham insisted on.
Operating margin 24% → 16% (3-yr avg ends)

What this means
Through the cycle the operating margin slipped — about 24% early to 16% lately, median 17% — competition or costs are biting in.
Reinvestment, incremental ROIC returns capital

What this means
The capital base barely grew: this business returns cash through dividends and buybacks rather than reinvesting. Judge it on the cash returned, not on compounding.
Owner earnings growth +36%/yr

What this means
Owner earnings grew about 36% a year over the record.
Worst year 2022 · 7.2% op. margin

What this means
Stayed profitable even in its hardest year, the resilience that survives recessions.

Does AI threaten the moat?

Elevated contestability

The product is software or information, the very thing capable AI now produces more cheaply, so the moat is more contestable than the record alone implies.

In its own filing A competitive risk, new this year

Its FY2025 10-K names artificial intelligence as a competitive threat, in language that was not in the prior year's filing.

“To the extent we fail to adopt such technologies effectively or as intended, experience delays in integrating these technologies into our operations or our competitors successfully implement improved AI technologies into their products or services, our ability to compete effectively could be harmed and our growth prosp…”

The moat the record shows, a high return on capital held across years, was earned before AI collapsed the cost of building a capable substitute for the very thing this business sells. When a credible alternative can be assembled for a fraction of the incumbent's price, it is pricing power that erodes first, not revenue tomorrow. The live question is whether the moat survives that, not whether it held in the past. Whether that question is answerable at all is yours to decide, against your own circle of competence.

Read from the filing's own risk factors, paired with the industry's structure under its SIC code; the durability is read above, the price below.

All figures as filed; the source filing is linked above.

Current Position

as of the latest quarter, Mar 31, 2026

Can the business pay what it owes this year, off the freshest balance sheet: the quality of the assets, the debt actually coming due, and what a low ratio means here.

Current assets$4.9B

Cash & short-term investments$1.4B
Receivables$3.3B
Other current assets$132M

Current liabilities$2.9B

Accounts payable$2.6B
Other current liabilities$257M

Current ratio1.68×all current assets ÷ what's due · Graham looked for 2×

Quick ratio1.68×stricter: inventory excluded

Cash ratio0.49×strictest: cash alone against what's due

Working capital$2.0Bthe cushion left after near-term bills

Revenue, latest quarter vs. a year ago+11.8%the freshest read on whether the business is still growing

Current ratio, recent quarters1.8× → 1.7×

Deeper floors

Tangible book value$2.5Bequity stripped of goodwill & intangibles

Net current asset value$1.6BGraham's net-net: current assets less all liabilities

Debt incl. operating leases$424M$424M of it operating leases; with finance leases, “total fixed claims” below reaches $463M (annual-report basis)

From the company's latest filing.

Lease obligations

the lease note, SEC EDGAR →

Debt by another name. What the business owes on the property, aircraft, stores and equipment it rents rather than owns is a fixed claim due on a schedule; added back to the debt, it is the true leverage. That ladder, and what it adds to the debt on the page above.

'26$91M

'27$85M

'28$128M

'29$119M

'30$104M

later$269M

Lease payments by year, scaled to the largest; “later” is everything beyond year five, shown apart. These are the contractual cash payments, before the interest the filing imputes back out to the balance-sheet liability.

Due in the next 12 months$91Ma fixed cash payment, owed whether or not the business has a good year

Total lease payments$795Mevery year plus the tail, undiscounted: the full cash the leases will take

On the balance sheet$436Mthe present value of those payments, the recognised lease liability

True leverage: debt plus leases

On-balance-sheet debt$27M

Lease obligations (present value)$436M

Total fixed claims on the business$463M

Counting the leases the way Buffett does, the fixed claims on this business come to $463M, of which the leases are 94%, more than the debt itself. The lease wall above and the debt schedule together are the calendar of what must be paid, and when.

Lease ladder read from the ASC 842 tags in the company’s Dec 31, 2025 annual report and reconciled: the yearly buckets sum to the undiscounted total, which less the imputed interest equals the balance-sheet liability; a ladder that doesn’t tie out is withheld.

How the cash was used, 2016–2025

Over the record, the business generated $3.9B of operating cash; how management split it reads as a cash builder, a large share of cash simply built up on the balance sheet.

Reinvested$628M · 16%
Buybacks$2.3B · 58%
Retained (debt / cash)$1.0B · 26%

Returned to owners$2.3B
65% of the owner earnings the business produced over the span, $0 as dividends and $2.3B as buybacks.
Source of fundingOperating cash
Operating cash covered reinvestment and returns; over the span debt rose $46M and cash and short-term investments rose $1.3B.
Average price paid for buybacks—
Buybacks ran $2.3B over the span, but the filings don't tag the share count needed to deduce the average price paid.
Net change in share count160.9%
The diluted count rose from 183M to 477M: issuance (stock pay, deals) outran any buybacks, so owners were diluted on net.
Dividend record—
No dividend line was reported in the filing data over the span; the record here neither confirms nor rules out a payout.

Buybacks are gross of stock issued to staff; the share-count line above is the net of that, the figure that decides whether owners gained. The average price paid blends a year of purchases (and any accelerated repurchase), so it is close, not exact. The record of where the cash went and on what terms.

Management, ownership & pay

read the proxy →

From the proxy: how much of the business the people running it own, and how they are paid, beside what the business earned for its owners in the same years.

Fiscal year	Chief executive	Pay, as filed	“Actually paid”	Owner earnings
2021	Jeff Green	$835.0M	—	$336M
2022	Jeff Green	$5.4M	−$620.3M	$494M
2023	Jeff Green	$32.0M	$291.7M	$552M
2024	Jeff Green	$6.8M	$589.4M	$641M
2025	Jeff Green	$27.4M	−$856.8M	$877M

Both pay figures are the company’s own, from the pay-versus-performance table its proxy statement files. “As filed” is the Summary Compensation Table total: salary, bonus, and equity awards at their value on the day of grant. “Actually paid” is the SEC’s prescribed recalculation, which re-marks those equity awards to what they became as they vested; it can swing far above or below the filed figure in either direction, and negative years occur. Owner earnings are the whole business's, from the record above, for the same fiscal years.

Insider ownership<1%
The stake all directors and executive officers hold together, per the 2026 proxy: skin in the game, the first thing Munger reads.
CEO pay ratio125:1
What the chief earns for every dollar the median employee makes, per the 2026 proxy. A high ratio alone settles nothing; some businesses are genuinely top-heavy in scarce skill. A runaway figure is where Buffett starts asking whether the board is doing its job.
Stock-based compensation$491M
The slice of the business handed to employees in shares this year, 17% of revenue, equal to 83% of operating profit. Buffett's oldest accounting fight: this is compensation, compensation is an expense, real whether or not the headline earnings admit it. One trap: the cash-flow statement adds SBC back, so the operating cash, and the owner earnings drawn from it, are flattered by exactly this amount; counted as the cost it is, what an owner keeps is lower.

Inverting the record

Invert: instead of why The Trade Desk Inc. is a good business, the question is what would make owning it a mistake, and whether those marks are in the record. Disconfirming tests across 2016–2025.

1 of the 5 tests turned up something to look into; the other 4 came back clean.

Look hereDid the share count rise anyway?160.9%
Diluted shares grew 160.9% over 2016–2025, even as the company spent $2.3B on buybacks. The repurchases were outrun by issuance — to staff, in a raise, or in a deal — and the filing says which; owners' slice still shrank. Read the buyback line beside this one, not on its own.

And these came back clean

Is it less profitable than it was?
Did debt outgrow the business?
Did reported profit become cash?
Did receivables and inventory outpace sales?

Each test is read from the filings and is noisy alone; a flag can mark a cyclical trough or a year of heavy investment as easily as a problem. The filing says which.

What an owner would ask, FY2025

read the 10-K →

Which reported numbers are a judgment call?
Management names Revenue recognition, Income taxes, Stock compensation as critical estimates
each rests partly on management's judgment; the filing's note sets out the assumptionsverify →

The questions the record and the charts do not answer on their own; each carries the figure and the place to look.

Peers, Software

The same industry, side by side on owner economics. Each figure is a through-cycle median, so a peak or trough year can’t distort it; the group median at the foot is the line to read each against.

Company	Revenue	Gross margin	Op. margin	ROIC	Owner earn. margin
NIQNIQ Global Intelligence plc	$4.2B	—	-2.5%	-2%	1%
MTCHMatch Group Inc.	$3.5B	73%	26.1%	17%	27%
TTDThe Trade Desk Inc.	$2.9B	79%	17.4%	22%	28%
SABRSabre	$2.8B	57%	9.0%	8%	-0%
RXTRackspace Technology Inc.	$2.7B	29%	-6.7%	-10%	6%
IACIAC Inc.	$2.4B	66%	-3.9%	-2%	3%
FDSFactSet	$2.3B	53%	30.0%	30%	27%
TRIPTripAdvisor Inc.	$1.9B	93%	6.9%	9%	10%
Group median	—	66%	7.9%	8%	8%

The price

What a price has to assume.

What the price implies

reverse-DCF

Type today's close and see the owner-earnings growth you'd have to believe to justify it, beside what The Trade Desk Inc. has delivered.

Today’s price $

Through the cycle, The Trade Desk Inc. earns about $817M on its 28.2% median owner-earnings margin. This year’s 30.3% margin runs in line with that. Normalize, below, values the price on that through-cycle figure rather than the latest year.

Base Normalize · through-cycle ($817M) Net of stock comp (−$471M) Steady-state · maintenance capex ($977M)

—

The assumptions Required return 9% Years of high growth 10 Terminal growth 2.5%

9.0% = the 4.55% 10-year Treasury (Jul 15, 2026) + 4.45 points of equity premium. The rate you require is yours to set.

Enter a price above to run it.

Implied by the price—

Owner-earnings growth · ’21→’25+16%/yr

Owner-earnings growth · ’16→’25+36%/yr

Owner-earnings yield—

P/E (3-yr earnings ’23–’25)—

P/B—

Graham’s price gate—

Graham capped the multiple at 15×; Buffett and Munger let that rule go: a wonderful business can deserve 50× if the thesis holds. The gate marks the bargain-hunter's floor.

Against a high-grade bond: Graham’s yardstick bond yield%

Prefilled with the 10-year Treasury (4.55%, as of Jul 15, 2026). Edit it for today’s exact figure, or a AAA corporate yield.

Graham measured a stock against the bond you could own instead, the heart of his margin of safety. Enter a price above to weigh the owner-earnings yield against this bond.

Free cash flow $842M on 475M shares outstanding (a weighted basic average, the only count this filer tags); net cash $1.3B. The base is the latest year by default; Normalize values it on the through-cycle median owner-earnings margin (to avoid paying on a peak year). Net of stock comp treats option pay as the expense it is. Capex ($251M) runs well above depreciation ($123M), so this is a build-out; Steady-state swaps total capex for maintenance (≈ depreciation), lifting the base to about $977M, the cash it would throw off if it stopped expanding. The dials set the multiple a growth belief justifies; the price, and every dollar on this page, is yours.

Weigh TTD against another business →

The owners of TTD: the meeting and the votes →

Cite: Owner Scorecard, "The Trade Desk Inc. (TTD), the owner's record," https://ownerscorecard.com/c/TTD, data as of 2026-07-09.

Manual order: ← TTC its page in the Manual TTEK →

Industry order: ← TTAN the Software chapter TTWO →