Trade Desk's stock soars, as a potential OpenAI partnership gives investors reason to cheer

By Hannah Pedone

The ad-buying platform's shares are the S&P 500's biggest gainer on the day - but are still among the index's worst performers over the past year

Shares of Trade Desk were having their best day in nearly a year on Thursday amid reports of a potential partnership with OpenAI.

Shares of Trade Desk shot higher Thursday following a report that OpenAI may partner with the advertising-technology company to help sell ads.

The rally was a welcome reprieve for Trade Desk investors, as the stock (TTD) had closed at a six-year low last week, and had been trading at about a fifth of the price of its late-2024 peak.

Trade Desk, which provides a platform that allows companies to bid on and buy ad space in real time, has been struggling as companies have cut back on ad spending, citing high levels of uncertainty about the economic environment. Investors have also worried about rising competition from tech giants like Amazon.com (AMZN) and Alphabet's (GOOGL) (GOOG) Google.

But CEO Jeff Green said last week that he believed the company could be an artificial-intelligence winner, given its advanced AI-fueled ad-buying platform.

Then late Wednesday, The Information reported that OpenAI has held early talks with Trade Desk to sell ads. The reported talks come after OpenAI launched ads in its AI agent ChatGPT last month.

OpenAI projects that ChatGPT ads could help the company double its revenue from its consumer business this year to $17 billion, according to The Information report.

OpenAI and Trade Desk did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the reported talks.

See also: Tech-software stocks jump

What may be providing an additional boost to Trade Desk's stock was the company's disclosure late Wednesday that CEO Green spent $148.1 million to buy 6 million Trade Desk shares between March 2 and March 4. He also acquired about 400,000 additional shares by way of a vested stock award.

Trade Desk's stock ran up 18.4% on Thursday, for the biggest one-day gain since it rallied 18.6% on last May 9. Trading volume swelled to about 53 million shares, already more than triple its full-day average.

But the stock was still down 55.4% over the past 12 months, which makes it the S&P 500 index's SPX third-biggest decliner over that time.

D.A. Davidson analyst Tom White wrote in a note to clients that it's "too early to know" how lucrative a partnership with OpenAI could be for Trade Desk.

He said that if Trade Desk clients can directly access ChatGPT's ad inventory, it would "clearly be a positive" for the company. However he noted that if ChatGPT aims to develop its own ad-tech stack, Trade Desk's benefits may be more temporary.

KeyBanc Capital's Justin Patterson wrote that while the long-term relationship and economics behind the potential partnership are unknown, "we believe any partnership announcement would be viewed as an incremental positive to [Trade Desk] given tepid sentiment."

Trade Desk may not be the only company poised to benefit from OpenAI's advertising ambitions. Another-ad tech platform, Criteo (CRTO), also announced a partnership with OpenAI this week. That company's shares were up 8.1% this week, at last check.

Read more: Trade Desk's stock has never been this cheap, and its brutal selloff might finally be over

-Hannah Pedone

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03-05-26 1810ET