Baron Funds, an investment management company, released its “Baron Opportunity Fund” second-quarter 2025 investor letter. A copy of the letter can be downloaded here. In the second quarter, the fund posted solid returns, rising 23.27% (Institutional Shares), exceeding the Russell 3000 Growth Index’s (the Benchmark) 17.55% gain and the S&P 500 Index’s 10.94% gain. The Fund appreciated 8.52% for the first half, compared to 5.80% and 6.20% returns for the indexes. In addition, you can check the fund’s top 5 holdings to determine its best picks for 2025.
In its second-quarter 2025 investor letter, Baron Opportunity Fund highlighted stocks such as The Trade Desk, Inc. (NASDAQ:TTD). Headquartered in Ventura, California, The Trade Desk, Inc. (NASDAQ:TTD) is a technology company that offers a self-service cloud-based ad-buying platform. The one-month return of The Trade Desk, Inc. (NASDAQ:TTD) was -35.68%, and its shares lost 48.57% of their value over the last 52 weeks. On August 19, 2025, The Trade Desk, Inc. (NASDAQ:TTD) stock closed at $52.53 per share, with a market capitalization of $25.684 billion.
Baron Opportunity Fund stated the following regarding The Trade Desk, Inc. (NASDAQ:TTD) in its second quarter 2025 investor letter:
“The Trade Desk, Inc. (NASDAQ:TTD) is the leading independent internet advertising demand-side platform, enabling agencies to efficiently purchase digital advertising across desktop, mobile, and online video channels. As we addressed in our last letter, we added to our position last quarter after shares declined meaningfully during the quarter following the company’s first earnings miss in 33 quarters as a public company, along with forward guidance that came in slightly below investor expectations. Since this “first miss ever,” we have done substantial research to validate our thesis and continued adding to our position. We believe Trade Desk has been executing well, with the company-wide reorganization complete, a strong pipeline of joint business plans with brands, and the Kokai platform upgrade adoption back on track. While we continue to watch the competitive landscape as Amazon enters the market more meaningfully, we believe Trade Desk represents the best option for advertisers for biddable Connected TV inventory. Trade Desk’s core positioning and strategy has also been validated, as major companies like Netflix, Disney, and Spotify have chosen to open their ad inventory to the company. Long term, we believe Trade Desk has a substantial runway for future growth. The company’s addressable opportunity set remains large and under-penetrated, as it has only an estimated 10% share in the more than $100 billion programmatic advertising market, a small and growing subset of the over $700 billion global advertising market.”
A large array of computer screens and tech equipment representing the technology company’s self-service cloud-based platform.
The Trade Desk, Inc. (NASDAQ:TTD) is not on our list of 30 Most Popular Stocks Among Hedge Funds. As per our database, 61 hedge fund portfolios held The Trade Desk, Inc. (NASDAQ:TTD) at the end of the first quarter, which was 63 in the previous quarter. While we acknowledge the risk and potential of The Trade Desk, Inc. (NASDAQ:TTD) as an investment, our conviction lies in the belief that some AI stocks hold greater promise for delivering higher returns and doing so within a shorter time frame. If you are looking for an AI stock that is more promising than The Trade Desk, Inc. (NASDAQ:TTD) and that has 10,000% upside potential, check out our report about this cheapest AI stock.
In another article, we covered The Trade Desk, Inc. (NASDAQ:TTD) and shared the list of best growth stocks to buy according to analysts. In addition, please check out our hedge fund investor letters Q2 2025 page for more investor letters from hedge funds and other leading investors.
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Disclosure: None. This article is originally published at Insider Monkey.
