New York, June 9, 2026, 10:11 EDT
- Reddit shares gained roughly 6.6% at the start of New York trading.
- Cleveland Research and Piper Sandler cited improved ad demand signals.
- The stock still faces risks tied to user growth, AI search traffic, and its valuation.
Reddit Inc shares climbed Tuesday morning, with new research firm data showing stronger ad momentum. That shift helped investors move past last week’s letdown when the stock was left off the S&P 500.
The stock gained 6.6% to $182.44. It opened at $178.15 and hit $182.94 at its session high. The move put the company’s market cap at roughly $36.9 billion.
Reddit’s pitch to public investors comes down to whether it can keep turning its big, high-intent user base into ad revenue, even as bigger rivals chase the same ad dollars. The key test is performance advertising, where ads are judged by actions like purchases, installs or sign-ups.
Reddit’s ad business picked up, with Cleveland Research pointing to more new customer activity and more spend from current advertisers. The firm said 45% of advertisers beat their ROI targets in Q2, up from 37% the quarter before. ROI tracks what each campaign returns per dollar spent.
The firm lifted its second-quarter revenue-growth call on Reddit to 47.5%, topping the 45.9% consensus. Its new 2026 revenue estimate is $3.3 billion, just above the $3.2 billion consensus view. The firm says its partners pointed to Reddit taking share from Snap, Pinterest and TikTok.
Piper Sandler kept its positive stance. The firm pointed to solid May ad spend numbers and better clarity for Reddit in AI-driven search citations. Artificial intelligence, or AI, in this context means software that can generate or sum up information, such as search answers. Piper put Reddit alongside YouTube and Roku for standout performance. At the same time, Piper said audience numbers inside Reddit Ads Manager showed more volatility than the firm expected.
Reddit jumped ahead of other social-media stocks out of the gate. Meta traded up 1.5%, Snap rose 1.5%, while Pinterest slipped a bit.
Stocks reversed after a shaky run. S&P Dow Jones Indices said last week Marvell Technology and Flex will join the S&P 500 before the open on June 22. Reddit was left out. Being added to the index can spur buying, since funds tracking the S&P 500 must usually pick up new constituents.
Reddit posted a 69% jump in first-quarter revenue to $663 million, with ad revenue up 74% at $625 million. Daily Active Uniques climbed 17%, reaching 126.8 million. That figure includes both logged-in and logged-out visitors, counted once per day. Bulls are finding some support in those numbers.
Chief Executive Steve Huffman called Reddit “a one-of-one business powered by deeply engaged communities and authentic human conversation” as the company posted results. Huffman said that’s what’s behind Reddit’s growth, profitability and efficiency. Reddit Investor Relations
Reddit’s active advertiser count jumped 75% from a year ago, COO Jen Wong told Reuters after the earnings report. Wong said partners are still committing, though most are planning on a month-to-month basis due to macro volatility. She said those commitments haven’t seen a material change.
Reddit is pitching its product updates to advertisers too. The company announced on May 27 that its Shopify integration is now available to global advertisers. Harish Balasubramanian, Reddit’s director of product for ads growth, said this integration lets businesses use Reddit without code, including pixel and catalog syncing.
Risks are still out there. Cleveland Research called Reddit Max, the ad tool, early and said it isn’t driving results yet. Piper pointed to swings in Ads Manager audience data. Reddit is trading at 52 times earnings, which means any big hit to ad growth or fresh worry that Google’s AI search could cut the flow of traffic to Reddit is a problem.
