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Palantir rises 11% to a record after announcing a switch to Nasdaq
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Palantir rises 11% to a record after announcing a switch to Nasdaq

Alex Karp, CEO of Palantir Technologies, speaks at the Digital X event in Cologne, Germany, on September 7, 2021.

Andreas Rentz | Getty Images

Palantir Shares continued their torrid run on Friday, rising 11% to a record, after the military software developer announced plans to transfer its listing from the New York Stock Exchange to the Nasdaq.

The stock soared past $65.77 at the close, bringing the company’s market cap to $150 billion. Shares are now up more than 45% since Palantir’s better-than-expected earnings report last week and have nearly quadrupled in value this year.

Palantir said late Thursday that it expects to begin trading on the Nasdaq on Nov. 26, under the existing ticker symbol “PLTR.” While changing listing sites doesn’t change a company’s fundamentals, board member Alexander Moore, a partner at venture capital firm 8VC, suggested in a post on social media site ” of dollars in purchases by exchange-traded funds.

“Everything we do is reward and support our retail followers,” Moore wrote, referring to a term that has become popular in the crypto community among long-term believers.

Moore then appears to have deleted his X account. His firm, 8VC, did not immediately respond to CNBC’s request for comment.

Last Monday, after the market closed, Palantir reported third-quarter earnings and revenue that beat expectations, and issued a fourth-quarter forecast that also topped Wall Street expectations. CEO Alex Karp wrote in the earnings release that the company was “absolutely eviscerated” this quarter, driven by demand for artificial intelligence technologies.

U.S. government revenues rose 40% from a year earlier to $320 million, while U.S. commercial revenues rose 54% to $179 million. During the earnings call, the company highlighted a five-year contract to expand its Maven technology to the US military. Palantir founded Maven in 2017 to provide AI tools to the Department of Defense.

The post-earnings rally coincides with the period following last week’s presidential elections. Palantir is seen as a potential beneficiary given the company’s ties to the Trump camp. Co-founder and chairman Peter Thiel was a key driver of Donald Trump’s first victorious campaign, although there was a public falling out with Trump in subsequent years.

When asked in June about his position on the 2024 election, Thiel said, “If you put a gun to my head, I’ll vote for Trump.”

Thiel’s Palantir assets have increased in value by about $3 billion since the earnings report and by $2 billion since the election.

In September, S&P Global announced that Palantir would join the S&P 500 stock index.

Analysts at Argus Research say the rally has pushed the stock too high, given current financials and growth expectations. The analysts still have a long-term buy rating on the stock and said in a report last week that the company had a “great” quarter, but they have downgraded their 12-month recommendation to a hold rating.

The stock “may be ahead of what business fundamentals can support,” the analysts wrote.

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