US Stocks After Hours: Twilio Surges 16%, Trade Desk Plunges 22% as Earnings Divergence Widens
Claire Weston
Multiple tech and consumer names swung sharply after hours on Q2 results — Twilio raised full-year guidance and surged 16%, while Trade Desk missed on both revenue and earnings and fell 22%. The market's message is clear: this earnings season, guidance matters more than the quarter itself.
What went wrong at Trade Desk?
Digital advertising platform Trade Desk fell roughly 22% after hours. Q2 adjusted EPS came in at $0.34, below the LSEG consensus of $0.40; revenue was $715 million, also short of the expected $751 million.
This means → both core metrics — revenue and profit — missed at the same time, cracking market confidence in the ad-tech leader.
In plain terms = Wall Street set two bars, Trade Desk cleared neither, and the stock lost a fifth of its value.
Why did Sweetgreen and DraftKings also fall?
Salad chain Sweetgreen dropped about 14%. Q2 loss per share was $0.22 on revenue of $193 million, both worse than the expected $0.15 loss and $195 million.
Sports-betting platform DraftKings slid over 1.5%. Revenue of $1.44 billion missed the $1.51 billion estimate; EPS was a $0.14 loss versus an expected $0.02 profit — flipping from profit to loss was the sharpest signal.
DraftKings reaffirmed its FY2026 adjusted EBITDA and revenue guidance. This means → management chose to hold its line on forward numbers, but the market clearly isn't convinced yet.
What powered Twilio and Cloudflare higher?
Twilio surged roughly 16% after hours. Q3 guidance called for adjusted EPS of $1.42–$1.47 and revenue of $1.51–$1.52 billion, both above consensus. The real catalyst: full-year revenue growth guidance was lifted from 14%–15% to 18%–18.5%, far exceeding analysts' 14.8% expectation.
In plain terms = Twilio didn't just beat this quarter — it told the market "the next quarters will be even better." That is what drove the spike.
Cloudflare jumped about 17%. Q3 guidance of $0.34 EPS and $736–$737 million in revenue topped estimates of $0.32 and $722 million; Q2 results also beat. This reflects accelerating demand in the cloud-security lane.
Which other names rallied?
Akamai Technologies rose roughly 12%. Q2 adjusted EPS of $1.59 (vs. $1.57 expected) and revenue of $1.10 billion (vs. $1.09 billion) beat modestly, yet the market rewarded it generously.
Airbnb gained about 7%. Q2 EPS of $1.37 (vs. $1.25) and revenue of $3.61 billion (vs. $3.58 billion) showed a bigger profit beat than top-line beat.
Instacart (parent Maplebear) climbed over 8%. Revenue of $1.04 billion topped the $1.03 billion estimate, though EPS of $0.45 fell short of $0.54. This means → the market cared more about the revenue-growth trajectory, temporarily overlooking the profit miss.
How did Lyft and Dropbox fare?
Lyft edged higher after hours. Revenue of $1.84 billion beat the $1.81 billion consensus; EPS of $0.13 came in a penny shy of $0.14 — top line passed, bottom line nearly did, and the stock barely moved.
Dropbox fell nearly 6%. Non-GAAP gross margin of 81.6% missed the StreetAccount estimate by just 0.1 percentage point; adjusted EPS of $0.75 topped the $0.74 call. In plain terms = the numbers were almost all correct, but the market still sold — a sign the valuation already priced in good news, and anything short of a surprise is bearish.
What does this after-hours action tell us?
The winners (Twilio, Cloudflare) share one trait: they didn't just beat the current quarter — they raised forward guidance. The losers (Trade Desk, Sweetgreen) failed to clear even the current-quarter bar.
This reflects the core logic of this earnings season: guidance sets the stock-price direction; the reported quarter is merely the floor.
The divergence within ad tech is especially striking — Trade Desk down sharply vs. Twilio / Cloudflare up sharply. This means → the market is not blanket-selling or blanket-buying entire sectors; it is evaluating guidance company by company. Stock picking matters more than sector picking.
Content is for reference only, not financial advice.