Palantir soars to new record closing high
Euphoria is building in the shares once again after the company posted a classic beat and raise in its Q2 earnings report this week.
Palantir finished the week strong, closing at a new record high of $186.96 on a weekly gain of 21% after its Monday earnings report seemed to meet sky-high expectations implied by the company’s arguably insane valuation metrics.
The excitement surrounding shares of the government data contractor and AI software company reaccelerated amid a wave of price target hikes from Wall Street analysts in the aftermath of the strong report.
In fact, the consensus price target for Palantir shares among Wall Street analysts covering the stock jumped 30%, up to $150 a share from $115.50 just before the numbers were released to the market Monday.
For the record, the Wall Street hive mind had a price target of $25 a share on Palantir a year ago, so it doesn’t exactly have a great track record on the stock. It’s also had a devil of a time getting on the right side of it. The last jump in the collective price target on Palantir came in February right before a fairly steep sell-off.
This time, however, the share price is outrunning Wall Street’s higher targets. Palantir jumped roughly 20% for the week, a gain that added to the stunning amounts of capital appreciation that have put Palantir on track to be the top stock in the S&P 500 for second straight year. It’s up nearly 150% year to date and roughly 675% over the last 12 months.
It should also be noted that even though Palantir’s Q2 numbers were great and estimates for earnings and sales have risen, the outsized share price jump this week means that Palantir’s valuation is only getting more extreme compared to its market contemporaries and also historical high-water marks for valuation — think the dot-com boom of the 1990s — that were followed by price crashes. But there’s clearly no crash in the offing today, and in fact quite the opposite.
