Analysts adjust Palantir stock ratings as valuation soars

Claude Shannon had a simple way of looking at life.

“I just wondered how things were put together,” he once said. 

Related: Analysts overhaul Palantir stock price target after Q3 earnings

That sense of wonder inspired the mathematician and computer scientist to invent a device that could solve the Rubik’s Cube, flame-throwing trumpets, rocket-powered Frisbees, and plastic foam shoes for navigating a lake that made the wearer seem to be walking on water.

And, oh, yeah, Shannon, who won the Nobel Prize in 1939, was also the first person to describe the Boolean gates that are essential to all digital electronic circuits. And he was one of the founding fathers of artificial intelligence.

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Put that in your flame-throwing trumpet and smoke it.

Shannon’s impact on the Information Age has been so profound that AI-research company Anthropic decided to name its family of large language models Claude in his honor.

Anthropic and data-analytics company Palantir Technologies  (PLTR) announced a partnership with Amazon Web Services  (AMZN)  to provide U.S. intelligence and defense agencies access to the Claude 3 and 3.5 family of models on AWS. 

The two companies said the partnership enables an integrated technology suite to implement the use of Claude within Palantir’s AI Platform while leveraging the security, agility, flexibility and sustainability benefits provided by AWS.

Alex Karp, Palantir’s CEO, during a Bloomberg Technology television interview during the FoundryCon event in Palo Alto. Photographer: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg via Getty Images

Bloomberg/Getty Images

Palantir CEO: Just starting to build company 

Claude became accessible within Palantir’s platform on AWS earlier this month.

Palantir, recently added to the S&P 500, has established itself as a key player in the defense industry, with a host of contracts with domestic and international agencies that focus on its data-analytics and AI technologies.

Related: Veteran trader makes surprising call between Palantir, Nvidia stock

The Denver company, founded by the tech investors Peter Thiel and Joe Lonsdale, is also seeing rapid growth in its commercial division.

“Our partnership with Anthropic and AWS provides U.S. defense and intelligence communities the tool chain they need to harness and deploy AI models securely, bringing the next generation of decision advantage to their most critical missions,” Shyam Sankar, Palantir’s chief technology officer, said in a statement.

Palantir has been on a tear lately. The company’s stock has more than tripled (up 232%) year-to-date and have soared 203% from a year ago. They touched a fresh high on Nov. 5 following a blowout earnings report.

Palantir also boosted its full-year revenue forecast for the third time this year, thanks in part to outsized gains from its nonmilitary business.

“We are building this company, and we believe we’re at the beginning,” Chief Executive Alex Karp told analysts during Palantir’s earnings call. “Despite great skepticism about our view of how to do this, the market seems to have decided [that] what works works.”

Some investment firms have raised concerns about Palantir’s high-flying valuation and adjusted their ratings on the company’s shares.

Analysts at Argus downgraded Palantir to hold from buy on Nov. 7, according to The Fly.

The company has been dramatically improving its profitability and cash flow over the past year, the investment firm said, but the shares have about tripled in value this year and might be getting ahead of what the fundamentals can support. 

Palantir also specializes in catering to a small segment of organizations with highly complex IT challenges, which could lead to uneven results that the market tends to punish in highly valued tech stocks, Argus added.

Jefferies analyst Brent Thill downgraded Palantir to underperform (effectively sell) from hold, affirming its price target at $28. 

The firm said that Palantir trading at 38 times estimated 2025 revenue makes it the most expensive software name while insider selling through 10b5-1 plans has picked up.

Veteran trader: PLTR guidance marvelous

The Securities and Exchange Commission’s Rule 10b5-1 enables stock trades to be scheduled in advance by public companies’ officers or directors to avoid accusations of insider trading, according to Investopedia. 

The company’s fundamentals “are alive,” but it would have to accelerate growth to 40% for four years straight and trade at 12 times estimated 2028 revenue “just to hold its stock price, which seems unlikely,” Thill said. 

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As such, Thill downgraded Palantir on the “unsustainable valuation” and said he is awaiting a better entry point.

TheStreet Pro’s Stephen Guilfoyle, on the other hand, was feeling all kinds of love for Palantir.

In fact, Guilfoyle, whose career goes back to the floor of the New York Stock Exchange in the 1980s, raised his price target for the company’s shares just two days after his previous target boost. 

“I wrote to you on Tuesday in response to [Palantir’s] glorious quarterly earnings report and marvelous guidance provided,” he wrote on Nov. 8. “In that piece, I increased our target price from $48 to $56. Well, it only took from Tuesday until Thursday for PLTR to trade at $56.”

The veteran trader lifted his latest price target on Palantir to $70, “just so we don’t end up selling shares more quickly than we can add them back on.”

“That does become a problem when a core holding refuses to consolidate,” he added.

Guilfoyle was feeling less-than-charitable toward Thill and Monness analyst Brian White, who reiterated his sell target on Palantir with an $18 target.

“Don’t let the guys rattle you,” he told his readers. “They both are long-time PLTR bears and have been wrong every step of the way. Neither of these analysts has had anything better than a ‘hold’ rating on PLTR at any point this year.”

“In short, when it comes to this name, you and I have absolutely schooled these two, who just can’t seem to get out of their own way,” Guilfoyle added. 

“Never forget, we are the hunters and gatherers who must create every day in order to eat. These are salaried employees who can never have that kind of hunger inside.”

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