What is a cash flow waterfall?

A cash flow waterfall is a bar chart that walks from operating cash flow through capital expenditure to free cash flow, then shows how the remaining cash is allocated — acquisitions, buybacks, dividends, debt, and other financing — ending at the net change in cash. Each step is colour-coded: green bars add to the running total, red bars subtract.

How does Trade Desk (TTD) spend its free cash flow?

For TTM through Q1 2026, Trade Desk generated $1.09B of operating cash flow and $837M of free cash flow — a free cash flow margin of 76.5% of operating cash flow. The waterfall breaks down how the remaining cash was allocated across investing and financing activities.

How much did Trade Desk (TTD) return via buybacks and dividends?

The waterfall shows buybacks (share repurchases) and dividends paid as separate steps in the financing section. Together these represent Trade Desk's shareholder returns for TTM through Q1 2026. You can compare these against free cash flow to assess the capital-return payout ratio.

Trade Desk (TTD) Cash Flow Waterfall

Operating CF

$1.09B

Capex

-$256M

Free Cash Flow

$837M

FCF Margin

+76.5%

Cash flow waterfall for Trade Desk (TTD) — TTM through Q1 2026

Free cash flow: $837M

Cash flow breakdown for Trade Desk (TTD) — TTM through Q1 2026

Line item	Amount	Running total
Operating Cash Flow	$1.09B	$1.09B
Capital Expenditure	-$256M	$837M
Free Cash Flow	$837M	$837M
Other Investing	$96.8M	$934M
Share Buybacks	-$1.16B	-$224M
Other Financing & FX	-$16M	-$240M
Net Cash Decrease	-$240M	-$240M

Operating Cash Flow$1.09B
Capital Expenditure-$256M
Free Cash Flow$837M
Other Investing$96.8M
Share Buybacks-$1.16B
Other Financing & FX-$16M
Net Cash Decrease-$240M

Want to see what drove the FCF change?Free Cash Flow Bridge

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