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Palantir’s pop bodes well for these other firms, UBS says

“Best-positioned to see AI pull-through.”

Matt Phillips

Palantir’s earnings-driven 34.4% romp last week was one for the ages, helping the software and AI contractor retake the top spot in the S&P 500 so far this year. (Palantir, which joined the index last September, rose 340% during 2024, making it the top-performing stock in the index.)

The Denver-based company’s robust 36% growth rate on revenues, driven in part by stronger-than-expected uptake of the company’s AI software offerings for corporate (that is, nongovernment clients), had Wall Street especially excited.

But investors are paying an insanely high premium for that growth, prompting one to wonder if there are other AI-exposed companies that might benefit from similar trends, but offer more compelling valuations.

To wit, analysts at UBS last week had this to say:

“The guidance for strong 54% US commercial revs growth in 2025 is a positive signal for primarily Databricks (according to our checks, Palantir and Databricks appear best-positioned to see AI pull-through) but to some degree Snowflake. In our view, Palantir’s success serves to validate the efforts of Databricks and Snowflake to expand into broader data intelligence platforms.”

Databricks isn’t much use to traders on the hunt for AI exposure at the moment because the company hasn’t yet gone public. But Snowflake, a cloud database services provider due to report earnings later this month, is listed and over the past year has been incredibly unloved compared to Palantir, given its exposure to some of the same trends.

On the other hand, Snowflake, unlike Palantir, is posting large losses that are expected to continue to grow over the next year, likely tempering optimism on the shares.

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Samsung’s massive Q1 fails to lift Sandisk, other data center plays

Almost all memory stocks slipped Tuesday, despite getting a positive update on the massive flood of money pouring into the sector from the AI build-out, as the potential escalation of the US war with Iran Tuesday evening overshadowed Samsung’s blowout numbers.

Korean chip giant Samsung Electronics reported preliminary Q1 results showing operating profit up by 755% compared to Q1 2025, trouncing pretty elevated expectations for a gain of about 550%.

Samsung is the world’s largest producer of NAND and DRAM chips. Once considered low-value commodity inputs to tech products, NAND and DRAM prices have exploded over the last six months amid a hyperscaler scramble to secure chips that can manage the surfeit of data produced by AI.

The same dynamics have made memory plays like Sandisk, Western Digital, and Micron some of the best-performing stocks in the S&P 500 over the last 12 months.

But other than Seagate Technology Holdings, those stocks were down Tuesday as of 11:15 a.m. ET, as the surge in oil prices and ongoing war with Iran muted much of the AI data center trade excitement. Bellwethers like Nvidia and hyperscalers like Oracle and Meta were struggling early, as were data center input makers like Corning and Coherent, AI power plays like GE Vernova, Vertiv Holdings, and even hard-hat builders of the shells that house all those AI servers.

On the other hand, some so-called optical stocks — makers of fiber-optic connections that quickly shift data between users, hyperscalers, and all around data centers themselves — were up. Lumentum and Arista Networks, two popular optical stocks, were showing resilience.

Samsung is the world’s largest producer of NAND and DRAM chips. Once considered low-value commodity inputs to tech products, NAND and DRAM prices have exploded over the last six months amid a hyperscaler scramble to secure chips that can manage the surfeit of data produced by AI.

The same dynamics have made memory plays like Sandisk, Western Digital, and Micron some of the best-performing stocks in the S&P 500 over the last 12 months.

But other than Seagate Technology Holdings, those stocks were down Tuesday as of 11:15 a.m. ET, as the surge in oil prices and ongoing war with Iran muted much of the AI data center trade excitement. Bellwethers like Nvidia and hyperscalers like Oracle and Meta were struggling early, as were data center input makers like Corning and Coherent, AI power plays like GE Vernova, Vertiv Holdings, and even hard-hat builders of the shells that house all those AI servers.

On the other hand, some so-called optical stocks — makers of fiber-optic connections that quickly shift data between users, hyperscalers, and all around data centers themselves — were up. Lumentum and Arista Networks, two popular optical stocks, were showing resilience.

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