Jefferies upgrades The Trade Desk to among top Internet picks
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Though paring some earlier gains, The Trade Desk (TTD
+0.7%) is higher after Jefferies upgraded the stock to Buy, making it a top pick among large-cap Internet-exposed companies.
The company is the best pure-play approach to the shift to programmatic ads, the firm says, with "deep relationships and a scalable business model."

There are five key catalysts set to drive the stock higher this year, the firm says.
First among those is conservative fiscal 2022 Street estimates for revenue, "particularly given the implied decel in ex-political growth with plenty of room for upward revisions." Jefferies also notes that a recently announced partnership with Walmart (and likely other retailers) can drive incremental ad spend to The Trade Desk's platform.
Other positive catalysts it notes: Broadening adoption of connected TV viewership is driving more dollars toward programmatic advertising, from linear TV; the Solimar product launch is "the biggest since Next Wave, which drove an acceleration in rev growth following its mid-2018 launch"; and TTD is in relatively better position to weather the privacy changes from Apple's iOS 14, "compared to Walled Garden names like FB and SNAP."
Connected TV growth will be TTD's biggest driver for the next 3-5 years, Jefferies says.
It's boosted its price target to $105, now implying 36% further upside.
Shares of The Trade Desk rose in November when it added NBCU's Peacock to its CTV platform.